NDC Demands Action Against 2 E.C. Officials

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday, 13 June 2008
THE National Democratic Congress (NDC) is demanding the re-assignment of Albert Kofi Arhin, Director of Elections at the Electoral Commission, in the supreme interest and security of the nation.

The party is also calling for the removal of the Head of Information Technology (IT) Department of the Commission whose name was given as Mr Akomea for alleged incompetence.

Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, General Secretary of the NDC, made the call at a news conference in Accra yesterday, in reaction to an earlier one organised by the EC on Tuesday on the alleged bloated voters register in 13 constituencies in the Ashanti Region.

He said when the NDC first raised the issue of the bloated register, "Mr Arhin swiftly reacted through various media with claims that what the party complained about did not exist in any official documents of the commission but the commission itself has come out to admit that there were discrepancies as a result of errors which occurred in programmes used to generate the voter’s statistics."

He also said Mr Akomea should be held responsible for not ensuring that the programmes used to store the statistics were in order, adding "anytime the NDC will raise the issue that the EC is not resourced enough, the commission itself will claim they have enough resources to organise elections."

Following the public pronouncements by the NDC over the bloated register, the EC set up a seven-member committee to investigate the matter and the committee’s report was made public by the EC on Tuesday.

At that news conference, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the EC, had said among other things that "the voters registration database from which it produces the register for elections is intact and does not contain the strange figures that formed the basis of the NDC’s allegation of a bloated register."

He further said that rather, they exist on the hard copies of the voter statistics that the NDC received, and are traceable to an operational error in the generation of the statistics.

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said when the EC was compelled to investigate the matter, the committee that it set up, came up with "key recommendations which were in line with the suggestions made by the NDC over the years but which have persistently been ignored by the Commission."

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said the use of conflict prevention mechanisms like the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) and stakeholders suggested by the NDC had been thwarted by the EC.

"I can recount numerous occasions when attempts by the NDC to use other means to seek solutions with the EC have been ignored. This left us with the option of public statements such as this.

"We wish to state that the NDC is a party committed to dialogue and consensus building among stakeholders in the establishment of electoral rules and processes. It must however be emphasised that consultation and consensus building among stakeholders thrive best in an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust and confidence which the committee rightly finds lacking between the EC and some of its stakeholders including the NDC."

Dr Kwabena Adjei, National Chairman of the NDC, said: "we want to enlist the support of the public in looking at the situation. We do not need to politicise this matter."