By Paul Nyathi

The Welshman Ncube led MDC has pegged a non refundable application fee of up to $500 on members aspiring to be considered as House Of Assmbly candidates representing the party in the thirty two seats allocated to it under the MDC Alliance agreement.

An aspiring candidate within the party revealed to ZimEye.com that the party has pegged an application administration fee of $200 on all prospective candidates plus a requirement to have party members pay up their party subscription fees for the last two years.

“We have been advised by the Secretary General that we must pay a non refundable application fee of $200 plus the monthly subscriptions for the last two years in order to be considered as candidates,” said the source.

“Further to that, the eventual candidates will be required to fully finance their own campaign as both the party and the MDC Alliance coalition do not have money set aside for the campaigns,” he added.

According to the source, members of the party who sit in the National Management Committee of the party will be required to pay at least $520 including the two year subscriptions and the application fee.

According to a subscriptions table provided to ZimEye.com by the sources, Ordinary card carrying members of the party most of whom will be considering applying to contest as councillors will be expected to pay at least $226 just to submit their applications.

“As a member of the Provincial Executive Committee I am expected to pay $264 to just to submit my application,” said the source.

“It is more deterring because even if it’s more than one of us applying to contest the seat we all have to pay the full non refundable application fee whether one succeeds as a final candidate or not,” yelled the source.

Quizzed on whether the arrangement has always been in place in the party, the source who indicated that he was one of the party candidates in the 2013 elections claimed that this is the first time the party is putting up the requirement.

“In the last election we were not asked to pay anything towards the application to be candidates though we paid our own nomination court fees,” he said.

“Even in the campaigns though the party didn’t have so much resources they chipped in by helping to provide a few posters and financing of campaign rallies where as this time we have been told that the party will not be putting anything into the campaign,” said the source.

Party Spokesperson Kurauone Chihwayi would not confirm the alleged fees promising that he will verify the figures and come back to ZimEye.com.