By William
Yaw Owusu
Friday, October
27, 2017
It has emerged that the
National Democratic Congress (NDC) starved its members who served as polling
agents on election day - December 7, 2016. They were not provided with food.
The 13-member Prof
Kwesi Botchwey Committee report that investigated causes of the NDC’s massive defeat
in the 2016 general elections reveals that some of the desperate agents had to
rely on the then opposition party agents for food, even though huge amounts of
money were voted for that purpose.
The money ended up
in the pockets of party officials whom the Botchwey Committee said should be
probed in order to recover it.
“There were reports
of the party’s polling agents not being fed on election day,” the 65-page
Executive Summary of the report states on Page 32.
Starving Agents
The report recounts
how some of the party’s agents were fed very late on the crucial election day
and others looking elsewhere to find their own food, making policing of the
ballot difficult.
“In Upper West, for
instance, it was reported to the committee that some of the polling agents were
not fed up to 4pm on the day and had to rely on the food that was supplied to
NPP polling agents,” the report says.
According to the
report, “Some of these claims were made to the committee with extreme anger and
emotions.”
Unplanned Logistics
The report says that
the NDC did not plan as far as distribution of logistics on election day was
concerned.
“The committee found
that the mobilization and distribution of logistics was unplanned and uncoordinated
and left much room for suspicion and manipulation,” according to the report.
Even though the NDC
was swimming in an uncharted wealth, the report claims, “There were widespread complaints
about a general lack of logistics across the country to cater for the 2016
election.”
No Money
According to the
report, the committee heard how money meant for monitoring the process on the election
day arrived very late in many places.
“Money meant for the
monitoring of the elections arrived on the eve of the elections and in some
cases arrived on the day of the elections,” the report posits.
It continues, “For
instance, in the Upper East and Upper West, their Election Directors had to
travel to the Northern Region to receive their regions’ money meant for the
monitoring of the elections on the day of the election. In the Upper West
Region in particular, constituents complained that as a result of the late
arrival of the money for monitoring, the region was unable to monitor the
elections in the region and could therefore not guarantee if the results that
were published for the region represented an accurate account of what
transpired on election day.”
Security Of Voters
According to the
report, the NDC could not take intelligence report on how the state security
was performing in the protection of voters on election day, saying, “in
Walewale in the Northern Region for instance, the committee was informed of how
the state security neglected the policing of some polling stations that were especially
located in the hinterlands leading to the firing of warning shots at those
polling stations to intimidate voters.
“This unfortunate
development led to poor monitoring and supervision of the elections in some
parts of the region.”
No Transport
The NDC, according
to the report, did not have its own vehicles to transport its electoral
materials to the regions and the constituencies prior to the election day and
had to rely on public transport to ferry the materials.
“This, in the
committee’s view, could not have been a conducive measure to secure the party’s
participation in the electoral process,” the report indicates.
Seal
It said the NDC’s
own seals it imported ahead of the election to secure the ballots on “are still
in the warehouse.”
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