The Electoral Commission Must Accept An Audit - NPP-USA

The Electoral Commission Must Accept An Audit of Ghana’s Bloated Voters’ Register – NPP-USA.

We recognize that Ghana’s elections are held in a materially weak internal control environment leading to questionable results, which in 2012 led to the landmark case in Ghana’s Supreme Court.

We have no illusion that Ghanaians are ready for another court case. But Ghanaians want fair and free elections. We believe this starts with major electoral reforms, which our party will present our recommendations in due course. We must however address one of the most fundamental issues of concern, specifically, the bloated voters’ register. We strongly support an audit to confirm or deny our suspicion as to the bloated register.

We refer to comments allegedly made by the Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Afari Gyan that no audit is necessary because the register is not bloated. We reserve our comments on the logic of the EC’s remark at this time. Ghanaians are divided into two groups – those who trust Dr. Afari Gyan and those who do not. However, those who trust Afari Gyan still believe that it is better to verify his voters’ register through an audit. Those who do not trust Afari Gyan do have evidence through analytic reviews to support the conclusion that the 2012 voters’ register is materially and significantly over-bloated.

The following supports our concerns. Kenya, with a population of 41,609,728 has 14,362,189 registered voters, which constitutes 34.1% of its population. Senegal, with a population of 12,767,556 has 5,302,349 registered voters, which constitute 41.5% of its population. Nigeria with a population of 162,470,737 has 67,746,327, which constitute 41.7% of its population. Tanzania with a 46,218,486 population has 19,650,412 registered voters, which constitute 42.5% of its population. How come Ghana with a population of 24,965,816 arrives at 14,031,763 registered voters constituting a whopping 56.2% of its population? We therefore, strongly urge Dr. Afari Gyan to reconsider his position and open his books for auditing, as an accountant will do when auditors show up, especially if they believe that they have done everything properly as Afari Gyan seems to be telling us.

Our election petition, though not sustained by the Supreme Court of Ghana, provided powerful evidence of a bloated voters’ register, which was corroborated by the Electoral Commission. Analytic reviews of our voters’ register based on Ghana’s population and also compared to other African countries show that Ghana is an outlier when it comes to the bloating of the voters’ register. Thus, to accept to go to 2016 elections with the same register subject to age considerations, which will increase the voters’ register would be unconscionable. NPP-USA is appealing to both our civil society and international public opinion to prevail upon Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan and the Electoral Commission to accept auditing of the visibly bloated Ghana’s voters register to make the 2016 election credible and crisis free.