Missing Names in Special Voters Register: We are partly to blame - GJA admits

The Ghana Journalists Association has admitted that it shares part of the blame for the missing names of journalists in the Special Voting register.

General Secretary of the Association, Kofi Yeboah, speaking to Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show explained, “GJA collated the list and sent it to the Electoral Commission. But this was made up of two copies; the printed hard copy and the soft copy on the pen drive. It happened that the soft copy and the hard copy were not the same, but there was a misunderstanding that the two were the same. So with that information, the EC only relied on the soft copy. This means that if someone’s name is on the hard copy and it is not on the soft copy that person cannot partake in the special voting”.

Kofi Yeboah apologized for this error on the part of the GJA and assured that the Association is doing all they can to find alternatives.

“I must admit that the GJA shares part of the blame. It is right to admit when you are wrong. If we had followed due diligence and made them understand that the two copies are not the same, then they would have looked at both. In that regard, on behalf of the Association, I take the blame and apologize for that”.

He further revealed that President of the GJA, Affail Monney, has suggested to the EC that journalists be allowed to vote on December 7th by using their accreditation rather than joining a long queue.

“We met with Jean Mensa and her two deputies and the GJA president requested that plans should be made to ameliorate the situation. He requested that on Dec.7 the journalists must not be allowed to join the queue but they should show their accreditation and vote. Jean Mensa took it in good fate and informed that there needs to be a plan for the field officers to be aware of this arrangement.

As I speak to you we are working on the accreditation for the election”, he added.

Meanwhile, he noted that other factors such as the use of the old Voters’ ID or the inaccurate information of the new Voters ID given by some journalist also accounted for the omission of some names in the register.

The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has said that majority of journalists cannot vote under Special Voting in the December polls because their details are missing from the Special Voting list.