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'I thought PPP had withdrawn suit' - EC chair
Drama unfolded yesterday(Friday September 30) when the EC under very bizarre circumstances accepted the filing fee of the PPP on Friday.
___5553692___https:______static.pulse.com.gh___webservice___escenic___binary___5553692___2016___10___1___8___Charlotte-Osei
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The National Chairman of the party, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond and National Treasurer Felix Ograh presented the completed forms together with the 50,000 cedis of filing fee on behalf of Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom.
An attempt to collect their money back after realising the legal implication or otherwise of what they have done was rejected by the EC who argued that the PPP knew the implications of their actions.
"Why did they present if the issue is still in court. I thought they had closed their case in court. I thought they had withdrawn it, that was my impression," Charlotte Osei explained at a news conference Friday.
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Meanwhile, the party has threatened to cite the commission for contempt for accepting the filing fee.
“We cannot on our own remove some of the requirements. So we were expecting her to reject the fees. We are filing a contempt case on Monday [October 3],” Policy Advisor with the PPP, Kofi Asamoah Siaw has said.
Mr Asamoah Siaw explained that according to the electoral laws, the requirements for filing included “the quadruplicate forms, picture, the filing fee and statutory declarations as well as tax declaration and asset declaration forms”.
He indicated that they wanted to submit the required items when they got to the EC's office but the EC instructed them to submit “everything that they had”. “She took everything and so she has to answer why she took the money. She is in contempt of court, or the commission is, and we will take appropriate measures to resolve the issue,” he told Accra-based Class FM.
He further explained that the EC did not accept the fees of the other presidential aspirants “except they want to say that they did backroom acceptance and when the cameras were there, they rejected it”, questioning: “So why do you accept that of the PPP when you rejected that of others?”
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The PPP is in court over the GHC50, 000 filing fee for presidential nominees, leading to an injunction placed on some aspects of the filing process.
The party is pursuing a declaration that Regulation 45 of C.I. 94 is discriminatory, arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. “That the entire C.I. 94 does not contain the appropriate relevant provisions that meet the intendment of Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”
The other reliefs sought include: “A declaration that the proper instrument within the meaning of the relevant laws of the Republic of Ghana, in charging a deposit or fees for conducting a presidential or parliamentary election, by the Electoral Commission, is a statutory instrument and not constitutional instrument. An order directed at the defendants to desist from collecting and or receiving the said deposit or fees for the conduct of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections until the appropriate statutory instruments have been passed in accordance with appropriate legal rights.”
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