Abolishing EC Strong room will be dangerous for Ghana - Group

Pressure group, CODGHA, says calls by the Institute of Economic Affairs for the EC Strongroom to be abolished must be ignored.

According to the group, any attempt to tamper with the current set up of the Strongroom will cause havoc for the country during elections.

The IEA has suggested the replacement of the strong room with a National Collation Center, which will be opened and accessible to many political party representatives and other stakeholders.

The Strong Room serves as the national collations center for the Electoral Commission during elections.

In a statement, Monday, CODGHA said any attempt to scrap the strongroom will be counterproductive.

The group is rather proposing the establishment of replica Strong rooms in the various EC regional offices across the country.

Below are details of the statement.

IEA CALL TO ABOLISH EC STRONG ROOM IS NOT ENOUGH!-CODGHA

The Institute of Economic Affairs (I.E.A) in a press release with respect to suggestions to Electoral Reforms did make some proposals to the electoral commission of Ghana.

In the said press release, it called for the abolition of EC’s strong room and instead be replaced with a National Collation Centre as a means of demystifying the negative and derogatory connotations associated with the centre.

CODGHA is however astonished about this suggestion as we believe the setting up of a National Collation Centre which will be opened and accessible to as many political party representatives, the media, election observers and other civil society organisations would be a recipe for disaster and likely to even heighten the political tension during declaration of Election results.

Instead of creating a National collation centre, the EC should rather focus on creating strong rooms at all regional offices in the country. We are of the firm believe that these decentralised strong rooms would make it easier for Political parties, Civil Society Groups, Media, and Election Observers to easily track figures and monitor errors as they trickle in to the centre.

Administrative and other clerical errors such as over voting, ballot stuffing, duplicate serial number(s), no signatures could easily be attended to at their respective regional level since the elections would be certified and declared on regional bases.

It’s almost a week as we asked the Electoral Commission to give Ghanaians explanations as to why it has altered the unique identity and in some instance reprinted new voters ID cards for voters who registered during the 2012 Biometric Registration Exercise. The Commission has been silent on the issue, but our next line of action on this matter shall be duly communicated to the public.

God bless Mother Ghana!

Signed:

Mr. Odame Ababio

Dr. Ishmael Mensah

Williams Agyei