The Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho has denied reports that the party is broke and desperately seeking funds, saying that even if the party got broke it would not rely on ‘drug money’.
Reports emerged that the party, two months after going into opposition, was in some financial difficulty and had started reaching out to political appointees under the administration of former President John Dramani Mahama and its Members of Parliament (MPs) to contribute money towards the running of the party.
The party, the reports suggested, had already held meetings with some of the appointees of the Mahama administration including former ministers and deputies, High Commissioners and Ambassadors to get them to contribute a certain amount of their ex-gratia to help run the party.
The report added that the meeting with former ministers got heated as some of them did not oblige the request, with the former Minister of Fisheries, Sherry Ayittey, reportedly demanding for a report on the finances of the party before they could make any contribution.
But according to Mr Anyidoho, though the party needed some more funds to run effectively, it was not broke and was not going to receive any funding from questionable sources.
“NDC is not broke. Though we can run the party more effectively if we get more money, we do not want money from questionable sources like drug money,” he stated in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Tuesday.
On the matter of heated exchanges during their meetings, the Deputy General Secretary explained that no such confrontation had happened to the best of his knowledge and the party was on course to building consensus for the future.
“It is not true that the meetings we have held at our Headquarters since the defeat in the elections have ended inconclusively. There is no fight in NDC. We need to build consensus to get stronger and we are doing just that,” he added.