The Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has warned about the negative impact of illegal campaign financing on Ghana’s democratic stability as the country prepares for the 2024 elections.
Mary Addah made this statement while speaking at the NorvanReports and Economic Governance Platform X Space discussion on the topic, “Safeguarding Ghana’s Stability Against Serious Organised Crime Threats” in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.
She emphasized that the infiltration of illicit funds in Ghana’s politics has the potential to skew national policies in favor of certain vested interests.
Mrs Addah also underscored the role of organized crime groups in undermining electoral processes through the bribery of various stakeholders, including election officials.
Corruption, she further noted, remains a pervasive challenge across many nations, with illicit financial flows often being used to manipulate electoral outcomes to the detriment of democratic principles.
“When illegal money that is not supposed to enter our body politics does so, it goes to benefit those who provided the funds. They tend to control certain policies to their benefit,” she remarked.
“Corruption is a significant challenge in many countries with bribes paid to manipulate election results, Organized Crime groups influence elections by bribing groups and election officials,” she added.
Speaking further during the X Space, Mrs Addah called upon the Electoral Commission (EC) to mandate greater transparency from political parties regarding the origins of their funding.
She emphasized that while the GII has been proactive in advocating for robust frameworks to ensure transparency in campaign financing and uphold electoral integrity, decisive action from the Executive branch is imperative to translate these advocacy efforts into tangible reforms.
A study by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) revealed that some individuals and groups fraud-funded political parties during the 2020 elections.
The report titled Rising Cost of Politics in Ghana Attracting Illicit Funding from Organised Crime, revealed that it costs $100 million to fund a presidential campaign in Ghana effectively.
The study, which was conducted in all 16 regions of Ghana, also showed that it takes parliamentary candidates at least $693,000, the equivalent of GHS 4 million, to prosecute a parliamentary campaign.