'We're selling the integrity of our elections' - GACC boss laments

The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) has hinted that Ghana’s democracy stands at risk of being undermined by Serious and Organised Crimes (SOC), whose proceeds may be used to finance the activities of politicians.

Officials of the GACC interacting with the community members in Kasseh Ada identified illegal mining, money laundering, drug trafficking, smuggling, and prohibited cyber activity (internet fraud) as the major types of SOC in Ghana.

Mrs Beauty Emefa Narteh, the Executive Secretary of the coalition, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the coalition, in partnership with the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, and with funding support from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), is organising a series of such sensitization programmes to educate Ghanaians on SOC-related issues and how they are becoming a threat to the elections of Ghana.

According to her, Ghanaians must demand that politicians disclose their sources of income to ensure transparency and accountability in the political system and also reduce the cost of politics, which has become a hindrance to people who naturally have the competence and the capacity to occupy such positions in Ghana from contesting and winning elections.

Samuel Harrison Cudjoe, the Programmes Officer of the GACC, noted that the main problem in Ghana now has to do with the political financiers placing candidates to contest for elections, or in some cases, putting themselves up for election as a means of getting close to power and protecting their interests, which may not align with the national interest.

According to him, elections in the United States of America (USA) are not as competitive as in Ghana.

This, he said, was because the financiers see a loss at the polls as a huge loss of funds, and so, elections in Ghana have become a life-and-death affair.