The
New Patriotic Party (NPP) yesterday went to town with some interesting
details about the work of the five-member panel of eminent persons
tasked by the Electoral Commission (EC) to look into the bloated voters’
register issue.
These details expose the double standards of the Commission chaired by Charlotte Osei.
The
committee, which was chaired by Justice VCRAC Crabbe, was set up by the
EC to look into concerns over the credibility of the existing voter
register and make recommendations as to how best it could be cleaned.
This
followed the NPP and other pressure groups’ call for a new register,
after it was discovered that the existing electoral roll which would be
used for the upcoming elections was bloated.
The NPP had
advocated for a completely new register as a solution to the bloated
register, whilst the EC insisted that the compilation of a new register
was not necessary.
Even though the committee, whose members
included Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante, Dr Grace Bediako, Dr Nii
Narku Quaynor and Maulvi Bin Salih, has submitted its report and
findings to the EC, it (EC) does not seem interested in implementing the
recommendations, thereby raising eyebrows over its intransigence over
calls for a validation exercise to prune the register.
To the EC,
the current challenge procedures under CI 72 and now CI 91 which
provide the mechanism of exhibition for cleaning records in the register
“are sufficient.”
At a press conference in Accra yesterday,
Director of Communications of the NPP, Nana Akomea, and the party’s
Director of Elections, Martin Agyei-Mensah Korsah, questioned the
decision.
Reason
That, according to Nana
Akomea, was because “The EC’s own Committee/Panel of Experts set up to
evaluate proposals for cleaning the register and make faithful
recommendations on the subject has categorically rejected the exhibition
process as not adequate and not viable for the purpose of cleaning up
the bloated register.”
He quoted page 17 paragraph 17 of their
report which states, “Judging by the sheer numbers, the Electoral
Commission’s proposition to display the register, with political
parties, the Electoral Commission and the citizenry to identify and
point out invalid names, is not a viable approach, particularly when
the persons who identify these records are expected to expend their
time, energy and resources not only to provide the evidence, but also to
testify before a court of competent jurisdiction. ”
The panel
continues on Page 18, “The system is not effective in achieving the set
goals of eliminating invalid records from the register and must be
reconsidered. It is said you cannot do the same thing and expect
different results.”
Evidence
For Nana
Akomea, therefore, “In the clear opinion of the EC’s own panel, the
process of cleaning the register through the exhibition of the register
is simply not viable and not adequate.”
He proceeded to quote
pages 20 and 21 which say, “It seems that doing nothing more than the
usual updating and waiting for the citizenry to pursue those who are
illegally registered will engender the most bloated register, by the
mere fact that very few of the names are likely to be brought up.
Generally, it might be difficult to justify leaving more than half a
million invalid records in the register that we seek to characterise as
credible.”
In other words, he said, “The EC’s own panel of
experts rejects the process of exhibition as not viable in cleaning a
bloated register, as the process amounts to a mere updating of records
that will still leave over 500,000 invalid names in the register.”
Nana
Akomea, therefore, had cause to quote pages 20-21 of the panel’s report
which among other things recommended that “The Electoral Commission
could consider extending the exhibition to have the voters confirm their
names on the list, an indication that they would want to maintain their
voter status. The benefits include signalling that the Electoral
Commission is doing something about the known flaws in the register; the
most cost effective approach is being used.”
It continues, “In
the same way that a new registration would have required the citizens to
physically appear for registration, the cleaning would require that
they appear to confirm. The major difference is, they spend less time
because no forms are filled. Rather than make others responsible for
maintaining voters’ names on the list, the individuals should themselves
do that. This also avoids the issue of people looking for documents to
support any claim to get a record removed.”
Concern
Interestingly,
the Charlotte Osei-led Electoral Commission is now hiding under the
cloak of being an independent body to sidestep the very recommendations
of a body it tasked to investigate the electoral roll and that of other
interest groups to embark on a validation exercise.
Instead, the
EC insists on going ahead with a scheduled exhibition exercise which may
only end up removing a few ghost names from the register, if its
request for institutions to submit lists of dead persons on their staff
list suffices.
But come what may, Nana Akomea is sure of an NPP
victory in the November 7 polls – with or without the cleaning of the
electoral register – except the fact that they want to win with a clean
roll. |
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