NPP contradicts itself on e-transmission

The acting General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. John Boadu, has insisted the Electoral Commission (EC) failed to consult the party before making a decision to transmit election results electronically from all 29,000 polling stations across the country in the December 7 polls.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class 91.3FM on Wednesday August 3, Mr. Boadu said no such agreement was reached with political parties at any Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting.

“…Agreeing that we should use hand-held scan machines to scan results as tabulated or collated at the constituency to the national collation centre is different from scanning or whatever of results at the polling station… It is not a question of whether we need that technology or not, it’s a question of even agreeing whether we need that technology or not.

The question is that: ‘Have we had discussions about it before?’ We’ve not, so it’s not a question of whether we need it or we don’t need it, it is even not on the table.

What did we agree and at what IPAC meeting did we agree that we must electronically transmit results from polling station to national and constituency? Where did we agree on this? And the rate at which they (EC) respond quickly to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), I expect that they respond to all other parties like that [but] they don’t and they are creating an impression that Mac Manu was part of this. …Yes he was part of this, he was part of that, but at no point did we agree as members of political parties that we should transmit results from polling station to national,” he told host Prince Minkah.

However, his comments contradict those by the acting National Chairman of the party, Mr. Freddie Blay, who told Class FM in Bolgatanga on Wednesday August 3 that the party, indeed, had agreed with the EC to transmit election results electronically.

“[On the] e-transmission [of election results], we’ve agreed, we’ve discussed [it with the Electoral Commission]. The world is moving forward and IT is also moving forward.

There’s nothing basically wrong with the e-transmission except that it must be transparent and must be accessible to all the parties involved. At every stage of the transmission, we should all be aware, we should all have access to it, we should all know how it is going, so, we are in principle not against, we’ve been told [about it] except that we want it done in a transparent manner so that there won’t be any libi-libi (rigging),” Mr. Blay said.