Jean Mensa defends compilation of voter register in election year

The Chair of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC), Jean Adukwei Mensa, has dismissed claims that the Commission has not compiled a new register in an election year before.

She says that has been done on a number of occasions, precisely in 2004 and 2012.

“Indeed in 2012, that was when the biometric technology was introduced to the country,” she said.

“At that time, it was new and we didn’t have experiences in it but the Commission felt it was necessary in the interest of strengthening the system to compile a new register.”

Mrs Adukwei Mensa made this known when she addressed leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on Friday, June 12.

The ceremony was at the instance of TUC.

It comes in the wake of an announcement by the Commission to begin the compilation of the new register from June 30, 2020.

There has been controversy over the decision by the EC to proceed with the decision to compile a new register.

One reason critics have adduced against the decision is time. According to them, it was imprudent for the Commission to go ahead with the registration with a few months to go as it even flies in the face of the protocols of ECOWAS regarding elections.

Former President John Dramani Mahama, the leader of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a party which has been vociferous in its stance against the EC and even filed a suit at the Supreme Court against the move, has said it is unprecedented in the history of the Fourth Republic for Ghanaians to be unsure of the kind of register to be used for an election six months away.

But the Chair of the Commission, who was appointed just in 2018 and gearing up for her first elections, assured that there should be no cause for alarm.

Already, she has justified a review of the biometric management system, which has seen the procurement of registration and verification kits, a data centre, and a software.

All this has cost the Commission $64 million, according to Mrs Adukwei Mensa.

“Here, we are building a robust system that will last the Commission 10 years and beyond.”