EC blowing cash on needless logo – Sydney

A social commentator, Sydney Casely-Hayford, has criticised the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana for spending sums of money on a rebranding campaign.

The Electoral Commission recently unveiled a logo as part of what it described as a rebranding exercise. The logo has a dark-blue circle as background with blotches of green, yellow, white, and red coloured spots.

Many have raised red flags about the logo indicating that is does not communicate the mandate of the commission. Others hold the view that it looks like a logo for an NGO while others hold the view that it is similar to that of a Turkish firm.

Commenting on the matter on Citi FM’s The Big Issue on Saturday April 16, Mr Casely-Hayford argued that the current logo, which has a black star in between two eagles at both sides of a shield, with a hand in the middle casting a ballot, gives one an idea of the commission’s mandate and does not need to be changed.

He held the view that a rebranding of the commission was unnecessary and was not priority, condemning the move which he said was a “waste of money, a waste of resources, and totally unnecessary”.

He explained that a rebranded EC is only imminent “when there is something significant or when there is a crisis or you want to reposition. This is taxpayer’s money”, he lamented.

A member of the communication team of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Ibrahim Adjei, who was also a guest on the programme, strongly opposed the idea of the new logo.

To him, the action of the EC will lead to several other expenditures involving the changing of everything which bears the old logo which, in totality, will be a waste of resources.

He joined the calls to have the new logo discarded since it was not important and not an area of priority as the country prepares for the November 7 polls.

“The EC has hundreds of offices at the regional, district, and national level so all those signboards have to change. It is money; even the [EC] website has to change. The cost is in millions of Ghana cedis in an election,” Mr Adjei added.