Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Mr. Amadu Sulley has discounted claims that a five-member panel established to look into the raging call for a new voters register had recommended a validation process to clean the voters register.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) and some pressure groups have mounted pressure in recent months on the EC to implement the report of the Committee claiming it had recommended the validation of the voters register.
Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA), a pro-NPP pressure group demonstrated in Kumasi in what it described as the last attempt to put pressure on the EC to implement the Committee recommendations.
Chairman of National Peace Council and a member of the V.C.R.A.C Committee, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante on Tuesday said the five-member panel set up by the Electoral Commission (EC) to look into concerns over the credibility of the voters’ register never recommended a validation process.
Speaking to journalists at a capacity building workshop for media practitioners on election reportage in Bolgatanga, Tuesday, Mr. Amadu Sulley said validation of voters register is not part of the commission’s methods of compiling a credible register for the November polls and is not part of recommendations made by the panel.
“Today people are saying throw away the register and get a new one. Some people say validate and others say audit but we are yet to get there and there were even a lot of talks that your validation had been said by your five-member panel in their recommendations. But I have been reading that document several times and am yet to come across a recommendation talking about that,” he said.
Mr. Amadu added that he was not surprised a member of the panel had made it explicit that they did not recommend a validation process for cleaning the voters register.
He said “these are terminologies used by various Election Management Bodies (EMB’s). An EMB like what we have in Kenya, they talk about auditing and they define the processes to go through to audit the register to become credible. So do we follow and do auditing….? In some places like Nigeria they validate voters.”
According to him, the cardinal point in an electoral process is the registration of voters which must be without fault. Anything short of that he noted would have implications on the elections.
By: Azongo Albert | A1RADIOONLINE.com | GHANA
