Charllotte Osei, EC Boss and her Deputy Sulley Amadu
Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the Electoral Commission (EC) has contracted a foreign firm to investigate claims that the current voter register is bloated.
It follows concerns raised by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the electoral roll does not only contain ghost names, but also has over 75,286 Togolese nationals in it – the reason why it has petitioned the EC pushing for an entirely new register ahead of the 2016 general elections.
The register is said to be bloated with over 1.5 million names scanned into it surreptitiously ostensibly to give advantage to a particular party.
Even though the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has rubbished the NPP’s claims, some religious leaders, civil society organisations and pressure groups have also added their voices to the call for a new electoral roll.
The EC claims that 30 groups, including 15 political parties, had submitted their positions on the matter.
But when the issue came up for discussion at an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting yesterday, chairperson of the EC, Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, was reported to have told the political parties that a foreign company had been contracted to assess and evaluate the evidence submitted by the parties.
She was, however, said to have fallen short of mentioning the name of the expatriate firm that had been given the task of investigating the issue.
The EC is said to have set the last week of October to organise a forum for the political parties and civil society groups to present their cases in public.
Questions, however, linger as to which IT company had been hired to review the register, how they were contracted and how such a review would address the concerns raised by the parties. The NDC in particular is pushing for an audit to clean it whilst others are advocating for the compilation of an entirely new electoral roll.
Issues bordering on some proposed reforms ahead of the 2016 general elections and continuous voter registration exercise were also said to have been discussed at the meeting.
Even though the EC officials were prepared to make a presentation on how they were going to proceed on the continuous registration exercise, the parties reportedly demanded written guidelines on how it (EC) wants to go about it in order to look at it vis-à-vis the country’s electoral laws.
The political parties are therefore waiting for the EC to furnish them with the modalities before making any inputs.
Present were representatives of the various political parties, including the two largest political parties in the country – the ruling NDC which was represented by its National Chairman, Kofi Portuphy and General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia, with the NPP represented by its General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong, former National Chairman, Peter Mac Manu, Member of Parliament (MP) for Akuapim South, Osei Bonsu Amoah and Director of Elections, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah.
New York Demo
The development at the EC headquarters yesterday came at the heels of an event in New York. A group of Ghanaians presented a petition to the United Nations Human Rights Council about the ill-treatment of the Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) demonstrators recently.
A large turnout of placard-bearing Ghanaians rendered support to the submission of the petition at the UN headquarters in New York where President John Mahama is attending the ongoing UN General Assembly.
The petition was jointly signed by Kwame Agyeman-Budu, Ibrahim Sanni, Issah, Ballah and Mujeeb Mogtari from the Staten Island, New York.
“We respectfully request that the United Nations and its Human Rights office act for humanity sake by finding that the Ghanaian Government is acting in violation of international human rights law and, more importantly, with an intentional and reckless disregard for human rights by unilaterally ordering and directing a “pre-emptive strike” against unprovoked and legitimate expression of fundamental human rights of Ghanaians, which will have a scathing effect on the peace and stability of the country. It is the utmost duty of the HRC to promote universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinctions of any kind and in a fair and equal manner.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu