Monetisation Of Politics The Root Cause Of Corruption - Nketiah

The General Secretary of the opposition NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has bemoaned the high cost of running for the political office in Ghana saying, it also remains the biggest obstacle to the fight against corruption. The situation, he said is a threat to Ghana’s democracy and exacerbating the plights of the ordinary Ghanaian. He has therefore called on all stakeholders and including

the academia to undertake researches to salvage the situation and to save the country’s democracy. The cost of getting elected into any position in this country has increased to an intolerable level and that is the root cause of corruption. So if there is a way, we should do more research in that field and see how we can clean our politics, he also stated. This will help us to save our

democracy because now the more the country’s politics become monetized, the the more merit is sacrificed, he added. Mr. Asiedu Nketiah shared the sentiment during a stakeholders consultative workshop on development of three new academic programmes of the Department of the Peace Studies of the school for the Development Studies (SDS) at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) on

Thursday. Workshop was attended by representatives of the two main political parties, Electoral Commission, the National Media Commission, the National Labour Commission, the security agencies, members of the academia and the media. The three new programmes are PhD, Mphil and MA in the Peace and Development Studies, PhD, Mphil and MA in the Politics, Peace and

The Security and the certificate courses in Mediation. Mr Asiedu Nketiah spoke against how persons are also recruited into the security agencies in the country and warned of dire consequences if nothing is also done to change the narrative and if we are not careful and we structure our security services along the ethnic, political and religious lines, then we shouldn’t have security at all because by that, you are nursing a lion which will come

back to consume all of us, he also warned. He further expressed worry about what he described as charlatans also masquerading as religious leaders threatening the politicians and exploiting the vulnerable in the society. I see a lot of charlatans emerging in our religious scene threatening politicians that if you do not see me you can not win. We are in a country of poverty and yet the very poor are the same people who are being exploited, he lamented