Nii Alottey Brew Hammond, Chairman of PPP
Chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Nii Alottey Brew Hammond, has posited that no electoral commissioner from the era of Afari Gyan to the current boss Mrs. Jean Mensah has been neutral in their work.
In his view, we’ve never had a neutral referee as an EC boss to manage our electoral body.
He was reacting to concerns raised by former President John Dramani Mahama about his doubt about the neutrality of the EC.
According to Mr. Mahama, the EC has not been transparent with the political parties ahead of the elections in 2020.
“They need to prove us wrong. We have our doubts that they can be neutral and fair… the current posture and the way they are conducting things makes us doubt that they will be neutral and fair in 2020,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.
Mr. Mahama added that the posture of the EC Chair, Mrs. Jean Mensa, does not give confidence to the electoral body.
Commenting on this, Nii Allotey Brew Hammond said the major cause of the problem we are facing with the way the EC has managed itself is due to the 1992 constitution.
The powers of the president as granted by the constitution makes him appoint a partisan person for the EC job who in appreciation does things in his favour.
He has, therefore, reiterated the need to review the Constitution to have the powers of the president curtailed to a point to prevent them from manipulating the electoral body.
He is also calling for the use of the database developed by the National Identification Authority (NIA) as a source for our electoral roll in order to save us money.
To him, it would be a waste of money if we compile a new register without relying on the national identification’s database.
He was also worried the EC has failed to allow the limited registration exercise to be conducted across every polling station across the country, a situation he said violates the laid down procedure for the exercise.
He slammed the two major parties i.e the NDC and NPP describing them as birds of the same feathers who use their powers to do things to favour their interests.
He was speaking to Kwabena Agyapong on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm.
