National Democratic Congress parliamentary candidate for the Madina constituency, Francis Xavier Sosu, has disclosed that he spent about GH¢ 300,000.00 on his campaign ahead of the party’s parliamentary primary held on August 24, 2019.
According to him, the funds were spent on things such as feeding and transportation of delegates, as well as the purchase of fuel for campaigns.
Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM, Monitored by Adomonline.com, Mr Sosu said “for now, I can’t say for a fact but I’m sure it should be somewhere over GH¢300,000.00. That is from somewhere July 2018 till now. It may be more, I am yet to reconcile.
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“Generally, the key elements include posters, branch visitations and most likely you would have to convey them; cost of transportation, feeding, cost of buying fuel for your team and sometimes petty requests coming from delegates; you take care of medical bills, school bills and so on,” the human rights lawyer added.
To him, he will not describe his gestures as a vote buying strategy but a show of care and love for the people he seeks to lead since the expenditure does not have direct links with the outcome of elections.
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“I think it is about showing care, love and concern for the people that you seek to lead. I think vote buying has to do with things that are directly connected with the elections; where you directly give them something to influence the mind of delegates for that purpose,” he stressed.
Mr Sosu emerged winner in the parliamentary primary after he polled 662 votes against his opponents, Sidi Abubakar who polled 480 votes, Ibrahim Faila Fuseini and Haija Rukaya, who had 219 and 16 votes respectively.
Source: Adomonline.com | Gertrude Otchere