EU Assists Ghana's Electoral Commission

ACCRA, Ghana (PANA) - Ghana's Electoral Commission is to benefit from a 5.9-billion-cedi grant from the European Union in support of the provision of photo-identity cards for voters.

An agreement to that effect was signed in Accra Monday.

It forms part of a 20-billion-cedi support under the Ghana-EU Co-operation for Elections 2000, scheduled for 8 December.

The second agreement involving 10.8 billion cedis, will support training and voter awareness campaigns by the EC and the Institute of Economic Affairs or IEA, an independent think-tank.

An EU statement said a further 3.2 billion cedis is being channelled throu gh a German NGO, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, again to heighten voter awareness.

The 20-billion cedi support, which comes from the 15-member EU, is aside of bilateral agreements reached between the Ghana Government and individual EU member states towards the elections.

Ghana's deputy finance minister, Victor Selormey, said the money would be used "to deepen our democratisation process."

He said the EU gave a similar support for the 1992 electoral process, training of candidates' agents in the 1996 elections and the acquisition of a stand-by generating set that helps the EC during power outages.

The head of the EU Delegation in Ghana, Charles Brook, explained that under the EC/IEA programme, political party candidates would be invited to debate on topical issues and their plans for the electorate to enable people to make informed choices.