Story: News Desk
The Executive Director of Transparency International Ghana (TI Ghana), Mrs Mary Awelana Addah, has issued a call for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and state investigative bodies to move beyond rhetoric and apply “harsh and deterrent” punishments to those involved in the Ayawaso East vote-buying scandal.
Speaking to the media, Mrs Addah warned that Ghana was losing the fight against a “disastrous canker” that had been allowed to degenerate due to years of unheeded warnings.
Her comments follow the fallout from the Saturday primary, where the distribution of television sets and other inducements led to the high-profile recall of Baba Jamal from his diplomatic post as Ghana’s High Commissioner for Nigeria by President John Mahama.
Mrs Addah argued that the credibility of the democratic process now rests on the “signalling” sent by both the party and the judiciary.
While acknowledging the complexities of proving bribery “beyond reasonable doubt” in a court of law, the TI Ghana boss insisted that political parties had the absolute mandate to sanitize their own internal processes. She urged the NDC to use its power to decide who was fit to represent the brand.
“The party decides who is qualified to participate in an election, and so the party can also decide who does not represent them… It is high time they put in place very stringent measures… and ensure that people are punished at that level,” Mrs Addah asserted.
She threw her full weight behind the Parliamentary caucus’s recommendation to annul the Ayawaso East election, stressing that those who engaged in criminal offences must be barred from proceeding further in the political process.
Beyond immediate punishments, Mrs Addah called for a total review of Ghana’s political financing laws. She described the current system as a “box-ticking exercise” that fails to address the root cause of monetization.
Addressing the role of the courts, Mrs Addah noted that while TI Ghana respects the justice process and the principle of fairness, the judiciary must not ignore the clear evidence of “naked bribery” that has become a public spectacle.
“We believe in the justice process, but the justice process should show fairness and show that when there is evidence, this evidence must be taken into account… we have a disastrous canker that is incrementally ensuring that we are losing this fight,” she warned.
The intervention by Transparency International adds significant weight to the growing coalition of civil society organisations—including IMANI Africa and OccupyGhana—demanding that the Ayawaso East incident serves as the final straw for electoral corruption in Ghana.
