EC 'exposes' NDC over '10pm invitation' letter?

One of the reasons the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) gave for their recent boycott of an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting was the fact that their invitation letter had the wrong time on it.

Initial letters sent out by the Electoral Commission (EC) had 10 pm stated as the time for the IPAC meeting. This was later changed to 10 am after the Commission realized their mistake.

The EC on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, provided updates on its plans for the compilation of the new register at an IPAC meeting. It divided the political parties into two groups.

The first group, which included the NDC and the ruling Patriotic Party (NPP), was scheduled to take place at 10: am and the second at 2: pm.

But National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi, claims the elections management body “deliberately gave them a wrong time.”

The letter, he explained, was the second they received from the EC after detecting an error with the date on the first letter.

“You [EC] write a first letter, get the date wrong, write a second letter seeking to replace the first letter and you got the time wrong and other political parties get the accurate one. What kind of tricks are they playing? Don’t we deserve better; don’t we deserve to be treated with respect as a people and as a political party in this country?” he fumed on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme.

However, the EC believes the NDC is trying to brew a storm in a teacup.

Throwing more light on this during a one-on-one interview on Peace FM morning show 'Kokrokoo', Deputy Electoral Commission Chair, Dr. Bossman Asare reaffirmed that the EC changed the time and sent corrected copies to the various political parties through their emails.

He said the letters were sent to two executives in the NDC (names undisclosed) and he has evidence to that effect.

Dr Bossman Asare further said the NDC is just trying to use the '10 pm' error as an excuse.

"We all know that meetings are not held at 10 pm; it was a mistake and our email trail shows that the corrected letters went to two NDC executives. My interpretation is that they are just using it as an excuse," he stated.