The Big Agenda: ‘Disrespectful EC back to square one with new ‘bloated’ voters’ register’

SEND Ghana, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has pegged what it describes as a failed and bloated register to disrespect of administrators of the Electoral Commission (EC).

Country Director, George Osei-Bimpeh, said if the EC had listened to some authorities who offered vital information and advice, the narrative would have been different.

The Traditional Council, Mr Osei-Bimpeh said, sent an invitation to the EC to have insightful discussions on proper procedures for the new register, but the Commission vehemently declined.

He said in another instance, Civil Society also brought statements to help reduce the budget for a more credible register from 35 million instead of 150 million but EC was still stiff-necked.

He again said the Inter-Party Advisory Committee, meant to be a consultative body, was reduced to an information-sharing platform which signified unwillingness to listen to any political party.

“EC decided not to listen to anyone and was not ready to give respect to anyone. They do not care for the country; in 2018 death and birth registry said it needed $1.5 million to develop a system called B&D automatic notification to alert EC on ghost names and new eligible persons, but they were only given 57% of the money,” he revealed.

He said the EC was disrespectful, inexperienced and did a ‘shoddy’ job.

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Adding his voice, Chairman of the People’s National Convention, Bernard Monah, said he has been vindicated on his position that the EC only wanted to squander Ghana’s money.

He explained the Commission is back to square one after making numerous arguments that a new register is better than updating the existing one.

“Their argument did not add up, there was no sense in wanting to do a new register. EC said the cost of cleaning the old register is more expensive and took money for a new one. They went ahead to do it anyway and now they have to resort to the same register cleaning they opposed months ago,” he said.