NPP suspicious over change of collation center

New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Amenfi East Constituency of the Western Region is bubbling with suspicion over the sudden change of venue to be used as collation center for the constituency in the Wednesday general election.

The party is of suspicion that a scheme had been hatched by some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and officials of the Electoral Commission (EC) to rig the elections following the sudden change of collation center to a venue they deem as “partisan grounds”.

Addressing a press conference in Wassa Akropong on Wednesday, the NPP Constituency Secretary, Isaac Kwasi Ennim, explained that at an Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held on June 17, 2016, it was unanimously agreed that the Amenfiman Senior High School should be used as the constituency collation center for the upcoming election.

He said all parties at the said IPAC meeting deemed the Amenfiman Senior High School as a neutral ground hence, the choice to use it as the collation center.

However, at a recent IPAC meeting held on November 24, 2016, he said the District Electoral Officer, Miss Juliana Asante, announced to the surprise of the meeting that the venue had been changed to the Assembly Hall of the Wassa East District Assembly.

According to him, several protests about the new venue by IPAC members proved futile as the District Electoral Officer was adamant on the matter.

Mr. Ennim noted that the main reason the NPP was opposed to the use of the Assembly Hall for collating results was that, the same venue was used in 2012 and because it has only one entrance, it was used “tactfully” by the NDC to prevent some NPP members from entering to challenge inflated figures.

“When we realized that some of the figures had been inflated and decided to go to the collation center to challenge the results, some NDC thugs stood near the entrance and fired gunshots to scare us away. In the process, some of our supporters including one Appiah and Kwame Nkrumah sustained various degrees of injury”, he said.

Besides, he said, few days before the district electoral officer announced the shift of venue, the NPP picked intelligence that the EC officer had held a secret meeting with the NDC candidate who is the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area and the District Chief Executive who is the campaign manager for the MP.

He said the NPP would therefore resist all attempt to change the venue, adding that they would not sit unconcerned and allow the NDC to rig the election  again as they allegedly did in 2012.

The NPP, he said, has therefore “petitioned the Western Regional Director of the Commission, the District Police Commander, the Omanhene of the Wassa Amenfi Traditional Council and the District Electoral Officer” on the matter.

He said the party would announce its next line of action if the decision is not reversed.