Fire at EC regional office won’t affect 2020 polls – Spokesperson

Public Relations Officer of the Electoral Commission (EC), Slyvia Annor, has said the upcoming elections will not be affected by the fire that ravaged the Commission’s Greater Accra Regional Office at Sapeiman.

She told Citi News that important public data at the office remain “safe and secure.”

The fire ravaged portions of the Greater Accra regional office warehouse in the early hours of Friday, August 14, 2020, destroying some old election materials that have been stored at the facility, according to the EC.

According to the EC, the timely intervention of personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service stopped the fire from spreading to the other offices.

“The matter is being investigated by the Ghana National Fire Service as well as the security agencies and as soon as the report is ready, we will make it available.

“It is important to assure the general public that the fire outbreak will not affect the conduct of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections,” Sylvia Annor stated.

In a separate statement, the urged the public “to ignore the falsehood being peddled on social media to the effect that its Data Centre was destroyed by the fire. The Electoral Commission assures the general public that its Data Centre is safe and secure.”

The EC last week completed a process to compile a new register for the December polls where it registered a little over 16.6 million into the electoral roll.

The 2020 presidential election is tipped to be a hot contest between the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by John Dramani Mahama.