Court stops EC’s workshop on controversial new voters’ registration exercise

Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) has temporarily been stopped from going ahead with a planned workshop on the controversial new voters’ register set to be compiled for the country’s polls in December this year.

Despite the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in the country and the ban on public gatherings, the Commission last week announced it will hold a planning meeting with all its directors and deputy directors across the country from April 24 to 29 at Prampram.

The planned meeting which has been criticized, the EC explained, seeks to afford its officials prepare and plan for the voters’ registration exercise which has already been suspended indefinitely due to the pandemic.

But the MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George, who is against the move by the EC filed an ex-parte motion for an interim injunction at the Accra High Court on Friday, April 24 to prevent the EC from going ahead with the said workshop in his constituency.

The court presided over by Justice John Eugene Nyante Nyadu upon hearing the application moved by lawyer Justice Srem-Sai ordered the EC and all its officials from going ahead with the meeting.

“It is hereby ordered that the respondent and all persons claiming through the respondent (EC) refrain from holding the workshop or conference scheduled to take place at the Escape Hotel Prampram from the 24th of April, 2020,” the court ruled.

The order, according to the court, will expire on April 27.