Security not our sole responsibility - EC

The Electoral Commission has parried suggestions that it should be blamed for the chaos and violence at registration centres in the ongoing voter’s registration exercise.

It comes after the Development and Special Initiatives minister Mavis Hawa Koomson admitted firing a gun at a registration centre. The MP who has confessed firing a warning shot at the centre claimed it was to defend herself after feeling threatened while touring registration centres at Kasoa. Before her, another violent incident at a registration at Banda in the Bono region led to the death of a 28-year-old man.

Addressing the media on the development, the EC chairperson Jean Mensah said Ghanaians have a responsibility to ensure peace at polling centres.

“As citizens, we all have a responsibility to ensure that we maintain the peace within the country…some institutions are trying to place the security at the doorstep of the commission and while we continue on a daily basis at the national, regional and district level to engage with the security forces to ensure there is safety and protection for all citizens at our registration offices, we do not think it is the commission’s sole responsibility to be responsible for security and we reject that assertion made by institutions that the commission should be held responsible for security.

 “As far back as 2019 started putting in place security arrangements. We briefed the security on our flashpoint areas, providing them with the details of our registration centres, our movement plans and so on and so forth. And that’s why we continue to experience and witness security presence at all the registration centres across the country,” she said.

“We will continue to work with them and we are doing this on a daily basis, hour-by-hour, briefing them on happenings and engaging with them on how to ensure the safety and stability and security of all registrants at every registration centre across the country. But we think that it doesn’t auger well for us when institutions will seek to blame the EC for security lapses,” she added.