The Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Protection Agency, Kofi Owusu Hene, popularly known as Kofi Kapito, has expressed concern over what he describes as the unhealthy monetisation of Ghana’s political system, particularly parliamentary elections.
According to him, “We have made politics or elections of parliamentarians going to parliament too attractive. It is becoming too attractive, which is why people are going to the extent that some of them go through,” he said on JoyNews’s AM Show in the wake of the Tamale Central by-election—triggered by the sudden passing of the constituency’s Member of Parliament and Minister for Environment, Mohammed Murtala, in last Wednesday’s helicopter crash, Mr Kapito lamented the growing role of money in political contests.
The opposition NPP has pulled out of the by-election, citing the risk of deepening national polarisation.
According to Kofi Kapito, prior to the year 2000, Ghana’s elections were largely a “battle of ideas,” with candidates outlining their vision and policies, and the most compelling proposals winning public support.
He recalled that in 1992, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) even boycotted the parliamentary elections due to a lack of interest in participating under prevailing conditions—an era he said was still free from the heavy financial influence seen today.
“It should be a battle of ideas. What happened? I was around in 1992 when we started to do the first republic thing. In 1992, the NPP even boycotted the election; there was no money involved in the election in 1992. Then 1996, the NPP was even struggling to get people to come and represent them, so the party was even paying people because it wasn’t that attractive because nobody was even using money to entice anybody,” he claimed.
Mr Kapito argued that the monetisation of politics, which began in the early 2000s, is a dangerous trend for the country, eroding merit-based leadership and undermining the democratic process.
“All of a sudden, the year 2000 came, and both sides realised that we need to use money, so the money things started,” he claimed.
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