High cost of elections not always due to corruption, but genuine expenditures are increasing – Mac Manu

A former National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Peter Mac Manu has indicated that the rising cost of running elections in Ghana is not necessarily due to corruption.

He said genuine electoral spending on internal and external elections organized by the parties, has been going up.

In order to change the narrative, he said there should, among other things, a time limit for campaigning in election season.

Mr Mac Manu was peaking with TV3 on the sidelines of a forum organised by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) on political parties financing on Wednesday, February 2.

He said “Cost of running elections is going up not necessarily because of corruption but genuine expenditures are also going up.

“Some of the recommendations we have made from time immemorial including, limiting the period for campaigning, then the institutional framework, the amount of monies that candidates have to pay internally in our own primaries and then externally at the national level to the electoral commission.”