Senior Lecturer, Ho Technical University, and Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association, Harrison Kofi Belley, has called for tougher action against people who accept money in exchange for their votes.

He believes Ghana's fight against vote buying will remain ineffective if law enforcement focuses only on those offering the bribes.

Speaking at the JoyNews Impact Makers Foundation's forum dubbed 'Democracy Is Not For Sale', Mr Belley said tackling the problem requires addressing both the "supply side" and the "demand side" of electoral bribery.

He said that while Ghana has chosen democracy as its system of governance, the growing practice of vote buying is threatening the principles on which it is built.

"We have systems of governance; democracy is one, communism is one, and others. We have chosen democracy," he said in Ho on Friday, July 31.

According to him, the country's democratic system is now facing a serious challenge.

"We in Ghana, as practitioners, have now been faced with the challenge of vote buying," he said.

Mr Belley said that public discussion and law enforcement efforts have largely concentrated on politicians and aspirants who pay money for votes, while ignoring those who willingly accept the payments.

"From the supply side and the demand side, we seem to be focusing on the supply side and not the demand side," he stated.

He said he had witnessed delegates agreeing among themselves on how much money they would demand from aspirants before any meeting took place.

"I followed aspirants to meet delegates. Before we got to the place, the delegates had met and decided on how much they were going to take, even without the knowledge of the aspirant," he revealed.

"So they agreed on what they would take before the aspirant came to meet them, and that is what the aspirant would be forced to pay."

He therefore called on law enforcement agencies to prosecute not only those offering inducements but also those receiving them.

"Our law enforcement is focused on the giver. Let's tackle it from the takers' level also and see whether we can stop it," he urged.

Mr Belley believes that prosecuting recipients of electoral bribes would discourage others from engaging in the practice.

"If you have a few takers of the bribe being arrested and then taken through the trial process and imprisoned, I think it will send some fear into the public. By so doing, it will help to reduce it," he said.

"But focusing only on the supply side will never stop it. Let's try to discourage the takers also."

Beyond enforcement, the anti-corruption advocate said the need for stronger civic education to change public attitudes towards vote buying.

Drawing on his experience as a former Regional Director and Director of Public and Corporate Affairs at the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), he said the institution has the capacity to educate citizens across the country but lacks the resources to do so effectively.

"I can confidently say that NCCE's budget allocation has never crossed the 80 per cent mark when it is being released," he said.

According to him, the commission has officers in every part of the country and can communicate with citizens in their local languages if adequately funded.

"Every corner of this country, when you go there, you will find NCCE staff there. They have the human resource capacity to educate every citizen in every language in this country. But the problem is underfunding," he said.

Mr Belley called on the government to adequately resource the NCCE, arguing that sustained public education is essential to reducing vote buying and protecting Ghana's democracy.

"If you want to tackle this, you must tackle it from the civic dimension, whereby we need to adequately resource the NCCE to get into education and roll out the way forward for this country," he said.