The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) wants the Police and the Special Prosecutor to investigate allegations of vote buying in the Assin North by-election.
Director of Advocacy and Policy Management at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, Dr Kojo Asante says a thorough investigation may be required to rid the country’s politics of corruption.
“So there have to be other ways in which institutions like the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the police, could undercover people so that if you can arrest one or two people, it will signal that this is against the law,” he stated.
The two main political parties have accused each other of vote-buying.
Meanwhile, former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has downplayed vote-buying accusations levelled against his party by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Assin North by-election.
Responding to this in an interview with journalists in Assin North, Boadu slammed the NDC for engaging in the act and then turning around to accuse NPP members of vote-buying.
He described the NDC’s claims as petty and insisted that there was nothing wrong with facilitating the transportation of some of the disadvantaged voters.
The National Communication Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, has also accused the NPP of purchasing votes by allegedly providing fertilisers and state-owned knapsack sprayers to voters.
Mr Gyamfi claimed that high-ranking members of the NPP, including NPP National Chairman, Stephen Ntim and General Secretary, Justin Kodua Frimpong, were orchestrating the party’s vote-buying efforts.