Upper East Regional Director of Electoral Commission, Mr. James Arthur-Yeboah has disclosed that three Parliamentary candidates out of a total of sixty seven were unable to pay their filing fee in the Upper East region.
He made this disclosure at a one – day capacity building workshop for media practitioners held at the Ghana Health Service Training Center in Bolgatanga.
Though Mr. Arthur did not disclose the identity of the three, he indicated that they could not pay the filing fee adding that he as a returning officer had no power to disqualify them but has informed the Electoral Commission Headquarters where a final decision will be taken by the election management body.
“Out of sixty seven people who filed their nomination forms, three of them did not come with the bankers draft for the payment of their filing fees. However, since the returning officer has no right to disqualify any candidate, all documents have been forwarded to the headquarters where action will be taken.”
He noted that in all sixty one of the candidates are males whereas six are females. He was however very delighted to mention that one visually impaired candidate filed to contest in the Chiana-Paga Constituency.
In all, Upper East Region has one thousand two hundred and twenty six polling stations with fifteen constituencies in the run up to this year’s election.
Meanwhile, balloting for the position of parliamentary candidates took place today at the premises of the Electoral Commission which saw the NDC and NPP been placed on third and fifth positions respectively.
However, Convention Peoples Party had no representative at the balloting which took place at the Electoral Commission Headquarters and therefore will have their position determined in the order of the filing for the Presidential.
Balloting for positions by the independent candidates will be done at the various district offices of the Electoral Commission.
By: Offei-Akoto Ayeh/A1RADIOONLINE/GHANA
