One of the reasons the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) gave for their recent boycott of an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting was the fact that their invitation letter had the wrong time on it.
Initial letters sent out by the Electoral Commission (EC) had 10 pm stated as the time for the IPAC meeting. This was later changed to 10 am after the Commission realized their mistake.
The EC on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 provided updates on its plans for the compilation of the new register at an IPAC meeting. It divided the political parties into two groups.
The first group, which included the NDC and the ruling Patriotic Party (NPP), was scheduled to take place at 10: am and the second at 2: pm.
But National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi, claims the elections management body “deliberately gave them a wrong time.”
The letter, he explained, was the second they received from the EC after detecting an error with the date on the first letter.
“You [EC] write a first letter, get the date wrong, write a second letter seeking to replace the first letter and you got the time wrong and other political parties get the accurate one. What kind of tricks are they playing? Don’t we deserve better; don’t we deserve to be treated with respect as a people and as a political party in this country?” he fumed on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme.
However, the EC believes the NDC is trying to brew a storm in a teacup.
Throwing more light on this during a one-on-one interview on Peace FM morning show 'Kokrokoo', Deputy Electoral Commission Chair, Dr. Bossman Asare reaffirmed that the EC changed the time and sent corrected copies to the various political parties through their emails.
He said the letters were sent to two executives in the NDC (names undisclosed) and he has evidence to that effect.
Dr Bossman Asare further said the NDC is just trying to use the '10 pm' error as an excuse.
"We all know that meetings are not held at 10 pm; it was a mistake and our email trail shows that the corrected letters went to two NDC executives. My interpretation is that they are just using it as an excuse," he stated.
Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com
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This is rather an admission not an expose. The EC is highly incompetent. They will throw this country into chaos if care is not taken.
Puppet EC. Akufo Addo pulling all the strings. God is watching us all.
Shame on the EC. They are very incompetent and very good liars.
The NDC didn't assign any other reason to why they would not attend the meeting except saying they needed 3 representatives and not only one. This EC is not credible, and an institution headed by incompetent, unintelligent and persons without integrity cannot organize a credible election.
@Mensah...stop your gibrish. If you are old enough you would identify a certain cry anytime there is going to be an election especially from opposition parties. Ghana will not burn and so stop causing fear and panic.
Reality checks will come to play if inexperienced EC COMMISSIONERS ACTIONS IS GOING TO PLUNGE GHANA INTO CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS. TODAY,MOST BANKS ACCEPT CURRENT VOTER ID CARD AS A PROOF OF NATIONALITTY. Source of validity to proof Ghanaian citizen. In future, are we going to discard the proposed voter ID?.YOU HAVE AN AVERAGE OF 18 MILLIONS GHANAIANS TO REGISTER IN 40 DAYS. This works up to registering OF over 450,000 eligible voters per day. THE QUESTION IS, IN THE PREVIOUS REGISTRATION PROCESS, WHAT IS EC AVERAGE REGISTRATION CAPACITY NATIONALY PER A DAY ? HOW LOGISCALLY TO SUMMOUNT THE HERCULEAN TASK OF REGISTERING 450,000 PER DAY,DISPLAYED THE PROVISIONAL REGISTER. CLEAN THE REGISTER. I AM GHANAIAN OF OVER 40YRS AND HOLDER OF A PASSPORT AND GHANA CARD. MY GRAND MOM, FATHER AND MOTHER ARE GHANAIANS HOLDING ONLY EC VOTER ID. PER EC DIRECTIVE, I HAVE TO VOUCH FOR CITEZENSHIP OF MY GRANDMOM, FATHER,AND MOM. HOW? ONLY IN GHANA. GHANAIANS IN NIGERIA,ABIDJAN, TOGO ,BURKINA FASSO, UK, USA who once possessed current voter card but desirous TO COME TO GHANA TO partake in EC REGISTERING under this covid 19. IS THE AIRPORT, BORDERS GOING TO BE OPENED FOR THEM.