By William
Yaw Owusu
Wednesday,
October 04, 2017
The biometric
registration exercise undertaken by the then ruling National Democratic
Congress (NDC) for its members made the party to believe that it had the
numbers to win the 2016 general elections.
“The register gave a
misleading impression of the party’s true strength in some branches and
constituencies, as some of the aspirants registered non-NDC members in their
bid to win at all cost and by all means,” the report of the Professor Kwesi
Botchwey Committee that investigated why the party, under John Mahama,
embarrassingly lost the December 7, 2016 elections, has indicated.
The now opposition party has
subsequently conceded that the biometric registration played a role in the
defeat of President John Mahama, saying that it is going to scrap it.
According to the Greater
Regional Chairman of the party, Ade Coker, the plan to jettison the biometric
system is to bring sanity into the party’s register.
Speaking during the NDC’s ‘unity walk’ in Accra
recently, Mr Ade Coker accepted the Botchwey Committee report on the biometric
registration which was manipulated to make the NDC look a large political
entity.
“We are now going to ensure that the biometric
registration which contributed to our downfall is going to be scrapped and a
better system put in place so that the true NDC people will be identified,” Ade
Coker said.
This observation was also accepted by a presidential
hopeful, Sylvester Mensah, who welcomed the decision by the executives to
review the biometric register, saying it would make the register more credible.
According to him, the current register is ridden with
errors and problems which need to be addressed before the party begins internal
elections.
“Of course, we have had difficulties with the
integrity of our register. We have evidence of individuals whose membership of
the NDC is doubtful on the register. We have had complaints from people to the
effect that their names have been omitted from the register. So it is a fact
that the register has challenges so there is a need for some work to be done on
this register,” he stated.
From pages 15 to 19
of the 65-page Executive Summary of the 455-page report which the NDC has kept
like a state secret, the Botchwey Committee recorded how the party was
inconsistent in deciding on the biometric exercise and manipulation of the
system by some individuals.
The party even at a
point attempted to link its biometric registration platform to the national
system operated by the Electoral Commission (EC) and at another, tried to
contract a South African firm called Guma Group - to conduct the biometric
exercise but abandoned it in the course of the whole project over cost.
Guma Group was the
same company the NDC government, under President John Evans Atta Mills, had
brought into the country to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2012 to
roll out housing units for the security agencies that never was.
The South African
company is affiliated to the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
The housing project
was supposed to take off in October 2015, beginning with the construction of
some 500 housing units for police personnel, and it was hoped that Guma Group
was going to fill the vacuum for the botched STX Korea housing project.
According to the
committee’s report, the NDC “implemented the biometric registration project
without any safety nets.”
The report said the
manipulation of the register was real and that had put the integrity of the
whole exercise into question.
“The integrity of
the biometric register was compromised and a number of the primaries flawed on
account of widespread manipulation,” the report has indicated.
Ethnicity
It also claims that
the biometric exercise brought “ethnicism in the constituencies of diverse
ethnic groups” in the party, adding, “Constituencies that hitherto supported
and promoted the party as one people, became divided during the primaries and
in some cases after the primaries.”
The report said that
the whole idea of the biometric registration was imposed on NDC members,
saying, “There were no broad consultations with stakeholders, especially the
MPs who were to be directly affected by the system.”
Fraud
“Some membership
cards were allegedly printed by unauthorized persons. The biometric register
was not piloted before implementation,” avers the report.
According to the
report, “Some national, regional and constituency executives had preferred
candidates and therefore skewed to favour them, leaving grassroots members
bitter and frustrated and making reconciliation difficult before and even after
elections.”
It maintains that “Some
members of the biometric registration committee itself were alleged to have
resorted to working independently of the committee and dealing directly with
aspirants and other interested parties in the parliamentary primaries in their
respective constituencies.”
It further posits, “There
were inconsistencies in the implementation of the biometric data capture project;
members who wanted to be registered were asked to pay GH¢1.00 per head but this
was abandoned and made free later in the course of the registration,” adding, “A
number of independent candidates emerged from many constituencies as protest to
the conduct and outcome of the implementation of the expanded Electoral
College.”
The report lists
constituencies such as Savelugu, Saboba and Bunkpurugu in the Northern Region;
Lawra in the Upper West Region; Akontombra in the Western Region and Adenta in
Greater Accra as areas where the mishandling of the biometric project brought
trouble to the NDC.
According to the
report, the committee was able to come to its conclusion on the biometric
register because of the contributions of “party supporters, as well as stakeholders,
including MPs (exiters) former aspirants, former Ambassadors and High
Commissioners, cadres, former ministers and deputies, the Zongo Caucus, the
communicators group and others, who appeared before the committee.
“A number of key
party executives and experts we spoke to largely corroborated the above summary
and the general confusion that beset the biometric register.”
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