EC urges political parties to engage loyal polling agents

Mr. C.O. Addei, Director of Training, Electoral Commission (EC), on Tuesday called on the leadership of political parties to engage qualified and loyal polling agents for Election 2012.

“I will advise the leadership of political parties to engage qualified, loyal and trainable agents to monitor events at the various polling stations.”

He said this when representatives of seven political parties from the Central and Western Regions undertook a study tour of EC’s facilities in Accra.

The political parties included the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Conventions People’s Party (CPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Independent People’s Party (IPP), People’s National Convention (PNC), Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and the United Front Party (UFP).

Political party representatives from the Volta, Upper West, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions had so far examined the EC’s facilities.

The tour dubbed “The Inbuilt Integrity of Ghana’s Electoral Process,” was organised by the EC in collaboration with the Department for International Development (DFID) of UK and KAB Governance Consult as part of the EC's efforts to deepen confidence of political party representatives and enhance the credibility of Election 2012.

Mr. Isaac Asomaning, Director of Elections at the EC, said the tour was to disabuse wrong notions among the general public and political party representatives on the duties and responsibilities of the Commission.

He introduced the representatives to the EC’s fax room popularly known as the ‘strong room’ and called on party representatives to demystify perceptions that the room was made up of sophisticated equipment.

“The strong room as you call it has only 10 fax machines each allocated to a Region. The Elections Department is vigilant in ensuring that results coming from all polling stations pass through the right fax machine,” he added.

Mr. Anthony Amedzeke, EC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) who led the representatives on the inspection tour, said the department had acquired two disaster recovery systems as back up for the recovery of lost data.

Mr. Kwesi Afriyie-Badu, Chief Executive Officer of KAB Consult, said his outfit would support the EC to train polling agents and supply 300,000 copies of guidelines for polling agents, Parliamentary and Presidential Candidates during the training.

Mr. Kwamena Duncan, Central Regional Secretary of NPP commended the EC for detecting multiple voter registration saying that was a significant step in ensuring credibility of the elections.

He said the EC should review the creation of new constituencies since the nation’s resources could not support the increase in Parliamentarians.

“Although the Constitution mandates the EC to review demarcations after the release of census reports, I think there should be a reduction in the number of constituencies instead of an all time increase in number,” he added.

Mr. Ato Maclean, Central Regional Secretary of CPP, commended the EC for the tour and recommended the use of automated equipment in collating election results to enhance speed and accuracy.

Mrs Iren Anani, an observer from the Electoral Commission of Benin, in an interview with the GNA said unlike Benin, Ghana’s EC had consistently ensured transparency and credibility calling on other African countries to emulate.**