NDC Planned Protest Is Useless – EC declares as it rejects bogus independent forensic audit demand
The Electoral Commission (EC) has rejected demands by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for an independent forensic audit of the voters register ahead of the December 7 elections.
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday, September 12, 2024, the Deputy Chairman, Operations of the EC, Samuel Tettey, virtually shred arguments by the NDC Director of Elections and IT, Dr Edward Omane- Boamah that the voters register is not fit for purpose and that the EC office is a crime scene.
He said the planned protest by the NDC on September 17 will amount to nothing as the Commission will not give in to their demands. “There is simply nothing to demonstrate about,” he added.
Nothing new
Mr Tettey said the so-called discrepancies that the NDC claimed they had detected were not new.
He said the Commission had detected the same issues and had taken steps to correct them.
Mr Tettey said the essence of the exhibitions exercise was to address all the concerns with the provisional voters register .
Forensic audit
On the NDC call for a forensic audit of the voters register, Mr Tettey said, it is totally needless.
”The Commission is of the view that the forensic audit is not what is needed at this time. It is premature.
“The Commission wishes to inform the general public that, the voters exhibition exercise in itself is an audit,” he explained.
2016 register
Further rubbishing the NDC demands, Mr Tettey said, “Perhaps this is the first time the NDC has taken interest in the register; otherwise one would have expected them to call for such an audit of the 2016 register which contained photos of plants and animals representing voters. “It is important to note that, contrary to what is being alluded, since 1992 the voters register has never been audited”.
He added: “ We have also noted comments by the NDC to the effect that ‘the very doctor that created the problem should not be the doctor that will resolve the problem. The EC must agree for an independent body to audit them’.
Mr Tettey said the EC holds a contrary view to the position held by the NDC. “We reiterate that it is the EC that is clothed with the responsibility and capacity to address discrepancies in the provisional voters register.The Commission has been doing this since 1992. It has the experience to do this and does not require any external organization to do its work.”
Ghost names
On claims by the NDC that there are ghost names in the voters register, Mr Tettey stated that the EC is aware that there may be dead persons on the register because several persons die each year.
“One of the key purposes of the exhibition exercise is to allow relatives of the dead to initiate the process of expunging their names from the Register. The NDC indicated at the meeting that it had identified some 50,000 persons who were dead on the Register. The Commission once again requested the details of the 50,000 dead persons and assured the NDC that it would work with the District Assembly and Birth and Death Registry to expunge the names from the Register. As with the data on the discrepancies identified by the NDC, we are yet to receive the list of the dead,” he explained.
