The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has called for urgent steps to confront the monetization of politics in the country.

That, he said, would help to reduce corruption and save the country's democracy.

“The cost of getting elected to any position in Ghana has increased to intolerable levels and that is the root cause of corruption," he stated.

Consultative forum

Mr Nketiah was speaking at a consultative forum organised by the Department of Peace and Development Studies of the University of Cape Coast in Cape Coast.

The forum was to solicit ideas as inputs into the department’s new programmes of study.


Mr Nketiah said there was the need to research into ways to purge politics of monetisation, pointing out that if the problem was not addressed, the situation would further lead to sacrificing merit in the nation's democracy.

He urged the nation's academic institutions to research into effective ways of making the nation's democracy formidable.

Religious charlatans
 
Mr Nketiah further called for a critical look at "untouchable religious leaders" some of whom he described as charlatans and their intrusion into politics.

According to him, the increasing presence and numbers was becoming a problem.


He said some of those religious men were exploiting the poor to grow "fat" adding that was another problem that must be confronted by the nation.

"I see a lot of charlatans emerging on the religious scene proclaiming to be everybody and threatening politicians; if you don't see me you can't win. We are in a country of poverty and yet the very poor are being exploited," he stated.

"It is like no politician can talk about them, the security cannot talk about them and their increasing presence and increasing numbers is becoming a problem," he added.

Peace and security

He also called for a proper structuring of the security agencies to make it more nationalistic in nature devoid of nepotism, religious considerations and cronyism to ensure peace and stability in the country.

He further called for improved living conditions of the people saying that “the best forms of security is to make the people happy.”