Coronavirus: EC to go ahead with New Register as Printing of 20million registration forms underway

The Jean Mensa led Electoral Commission (EC) is beating war drums to set the country ablaze. With Corona virus collapsing businesses and killing millions of people across the globe, Jean Mensa and the EC seem unconcerned and ready to go ahead with the compilation of a new voters register in May 2020.

Several civil society organizations, political parties and intellectuals have cautioned the EC against its scheme to plunge the nation into a state of instability and anarchy.

Notable among such individuals is Bright Simons – a vice president of IMANI Africa, a policy think thank in Africa. He has constantly and persistently asked the EC to rather work on the existing old register than its decision to have a new register done.

“The system they are going to procure is new and there will not be enough time to go through all the technical configurations such as field testing before the elections day. For the old system we already know the challenges and we have been using it since 2012,” he stated.

Mr Simons contends that the EC’s insistence on compiling a new voter register for the elections even in the midst of a global pandemic amounts to holding the country hostage.

With many Ghanaians of the hope that the EC will do away with the compilation of a new voters register because of this deadly corona virus, the EC seems to be very stubborn, irresponsible, insensitive with the president of Ghana Akufo-Addo aiding them to plunge the nation into a turbulence of an unending flames.

The EC is printing new registration forms at Buck Press and ATT Printing press amounting to twenty million Ghana CEDIS (Ghc20,000,000.00) for their proposed May 18, 2020 mass registration.

Yesterday the EC deified a court injunction brought against it by Hon. Sam George Nartey restricting it from having a workshop and training seminar for all the 16 regional directors of the EC in Ghana. Something Sam George sees as an illegality and an assault on the rule of law in Ghana.

“What is going in there is an illegality that has been established by competent court of jurisdiction of the country. The Electoral Commission led by the Jean Mensa and Bossman Asare are flouting the orders of the court.

“The Electoral Commission is doing what they are doing because they have the tacit approval and support of the Flagstaff House. President Akufo-Addo is endorsing the illegality and irresponsibility of the Electoral Commission and this is the man who claims to be a doyen of the rule of law,” he added.

With many Ghanaians alleging that the EC’s keen interest is to enrich itself and rig the election in favor of Akufo-Addo hence their refusal to listen to the call of the vast majority of Ghanaians to drop the new register.

Source: Otchere Ofori-Atta Bosompem