Representatives of political parties examine EC’s facilities

Category: Politics Created on Wednesday, 04 July 2012 14:36 Published Date Written by GNA Hits: 287

Accra, July 4, GNA – Representatives of 10 political parties from the Volta and Ashanti Regions have examined facilities at the Electoral Commission (EC) as part of measures to deepen the confidence of political party executives in the electoral process.

     The representatives are from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP), Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP), People’s National Convention (PNC), Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), United Freedom Party (UFP), and the New Vision Party (NVP).

     The other parties are, Independent People’s Party (IPP), Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and United Democratic Forum Party (UDFP).

     The tour dubbed: “The Inbuilt of Ghana’s Electoral Process,” was organised by the EC in collaboration with DFID and KAB Governance Consult, in Accra, to offer political parties insight of the core duties and responsibilities of EC and to address their concerns on the biometric voting process.

     Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the EC, said the educational tour was to demonstrate to political parties the neutrality of the Commission in electoral processes.

     He said: “The EC would continue to adhere to electoral principles, norms and values to ensure free, fair, transparent and credible elections. We have our personal and institutional image to protect…we have come too far to mar such high reputation locally and internationally.”  

     On the creation of new districts, the EC Chairman, who has additional responsibility for the two regions, said the Commission was using the same procedures for the creation of constituencies in 2004 to create new ones.

  In view of the new districts, the Commission would, therefore, go ahead to create additional 45 constituencies to bring the total number of constituencies for to 275 for the December Elections.

     Dr Afari-Gyan called on political parties to engage trainable polling agents to observe electoral processes to help protect the credibility of the Commission and pledged its commitment to adhere to the provision of evidence rule should any political party raise issues of electoral malpractices.

     Mr Anthony Amedzeke, EC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology Department, who led the representatives on the inspection tour, said the Department’s core duties were to implement policies and initiatives into IT data.

     He said the IT Department was responsible for the detection of double registration and revealed that it had captured all double registrations and the culprits would be dealt with according to the law.

     Mr Daniel Amanyo, Assistant Director of Elections, introduced them to operations at the EC Fax Room popularly known as the “Strong Room,” and the Lamination room.

     Mr Joseph Yammin, NDC Ashanti Regional Secretary, on behalf of the representatives, commended the Commission for the tour saying, “It would help politicians understand the enormous duties of the Commission and help them to exercise restraint on some complex issues”.