The Founder of the All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has bemoaned how expensive political party campaigning has become in Ghana, describing the situation as worrying.
According to him, the two major political parties — the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), are to blame for the expensive nature of political campaigning.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Etsey Atisu on GhanaWeb TV on Election Desk, Hassan Ayariga disclosed that a political leader would require not less than a whopping GH₵100,000 to fund campaign activity for just one day.
“Campaign is very extensive, and it has not been easy going round. The two major political parties have monetized political campaigns, and because of that, any leader who would have to go out and campaign in a day must be looking at between GH₵100,000 and GH₵300,000 to spend in a day. You will need a minimum of, say, 1,000 to 2,000 t-shirts to move. One thousand T-shirts is about GH₵50,000. You need vehicles; you need to fuel them.
“Wherever you are going, you need to organise the place and get people to either wait for you or organise them in houses like the chief’s palace, community base, and other social gatherings, and you have to pay for that. Then you have item 13. Now the economy is so bad that when you gather people, they expect to take something home, not only feed them; they expect you to pay for their transportation to come to you, and they expect to get item 13 as well. When you put all these together, a campaign is very expensive,” Hassan Ayariga said.
He stated that his motivation to continue contesting to be elected president of Ghana, even though campaigning has become very expensive, is because past leaders have failed the country.
“… Why because the leaders who have led Ghana have failed us, and every good thing is expensive. There is nothing that comes out cheap, and you will think it is good. 32 years down the lane, we have seen parties change leadership 16 years each under the Fourth Republic. You can tell that nothing good has come out of their leadership. Look at the roads in Accra; it is terrible. That is the capital city of Ghana. Look at the living conditions of people in Accra. Go to Circle and see how people are sleeping under the bridges, they can’t get water to bath, in Accra now, there’s shortage of water. The youth of this country do not have jobs. So there’s no future for any young man living in Ghana under the leadership of the two political parties,” Hassan Ayariga added.
He said his goal is to become president to provide the enabling environment to make Ghanaians, especially the teeming unemployed youth, thrive and get jobs.
ghanaweb.com