Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan is the Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana.
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday August 31, 2011.
There was confusion at the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting with Electoral Commission (EC) in Accra yesterday, sparking a walk-out by the representatives of the political parties.
The meeting had been convened at the instance of the EC to deliberate on the way forward for the biometric voters’ registration but disagreement between the commission and the parties stalled the process.
When Daily Guide reached Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh who is one of the NPP’s representatives on the IPAC, confirmed the incident and said all the political parties were involved in the walk-out.
The MP for Manhyia who is the NPP Chairman for Electoral Affairs said they received notice on August 15, from the EC, inviting them to attend an IPAC meeting and when they went, the Commission wanted them to inspect the new biometric registration technology to be used.
He said “when we got there we told them that political parties have been demanding for a meeting to express our fears about the biometric procurement process and could not understand why the meeting kept long in coming.”
The MP said they were aware that an aggrieved company that felt shortchanged in the bidding placed a court injunction on the entire procurement process and also petitioned the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) who in turn put a moratorium on it.
Dr Opoku-Prempeh said despite their position that the process be halted for the court and the PPA to settle the issues, the EC has ignored the concerns and gone ahead with the procurement of biometric materials for the registration exercise.
“As a legislator if the EC is flouting the laws of the land I cannot be part of it. I have to respect the constitution.
“We came to an agreement that we could not be part of what the EC was doing and we all left the premises”, he said.
According to him the EC has flagrantly acted in breach of the procurement law in buying the biometric technology for which reason the NPP will not be part of that illegality.
“I would rather walk out and go and tell my party that the EC is taking this country down a path that may not be well for us,” he said.
He said they were made to sign an undertaking or a “golden rule” by the EC before the meeting that they were only to observe and could not make any comment.
The People’s National Convention representative Bernard Mornah described as “not normal” the EC’s undertaking demanded of the political party representatives.
“…I raised a protest and said this is not acceptable. I cannot walk into a meeting and then not be allowed to talk. I don’t know in which part of our constitution where my right of speech has been restricted except by the EC’s attendance sheet,” he told Joy FM.
He said after almost three hours of waiting, the deputy chairman of the EC finally commenced the meeting and asked the political party representatives to go and observe the new technology.
That, he considered unacceptable, adding, “my party did not just send me out there to come and sit down and watch how things are demonstrated.”
However, when contacted on telephone to clarify issues, Christian Owusu-Parry, Public Affairs Director of the EC dismissed the political parties’ claims that the commission held an IPAC meeting.
“There has not been any IPAC meeting. We have not invited any representative for a meeting.”
He explained that the EC was still in the process of procuring equipment for the biometric voters’ registration and as a result shortlisted companies to demonstrate their capabilities on the biometric registration.
“We want to find out which shortlisted company really has the solution for the biometric registration process and that was why we invited the political parties to observe what we are doing. It was not an IPAC meeting”, he told DAILY GUIDE.
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