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The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the protest by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for a forensic audit of the Voter register as needless and time-wasting.
It said the party cannot use its aggressiveness to influence the Electoral Commission (EC), which, per the constitution, is mandated to be independent to heed the request; hence, the Commission should reject their call.
The General Secretary of the NPP, Mr Justin Frimpong Koduah, who said this at a press conference on Friday in Accra, described the NDC’s refusal to submit evidence of alleged irregularities to the Commission as “deceptive and mischievous”, stressing that the party would also demonstrate against the Commission should it heed to the NDC’s call to audit the register.
He cited the Constitutional Instrument on the Registration of Voters, C.I. 91, as amended by C.I. 127, which addresses errors, omissions, and corrections to the register, adding that other existing electoral laws provide mechanisms for resolving discrepancies.
“It is worthy of note that before their demonstration, the Commission granted a stakeholder meeting with the NDC on Friday, September 6, 2024, after the NDC had requested a meeting in a letter dated August 27, 2024.
The meeting accorded the NDC an opportunity to present their concerns of alleged discrepancies regarding the 2024 Provisional Voters’ Register to the EC, where the NDC indicated that they had identified five issues with the Provisional Voters’ Register,” Mr Koduah said.
He said the discrepancies submitted to the Commission by the NDC, include missing names and photos of registered voters, misplaced voter transfers, deleted names of registered voters, unidentified voter transfer paths, and unauthorised voter transfers, where the Commission demanded details of the discrepancies from the party.
“The NPP challenged the NDC to provide evidence of alleged irregularities, discrepancies, and manipulation of the provisional register.
We can also not run from the fact that during the September 6, 2024 meeting, the EC requested the NDC to furnish it with details of all the discrepancies it had identified. To date, the NDC is yet to submit such information to the EC,” Mr Koduah said.
He said what the NPP could not comprehend is why the NDC has still not submitted to the EC detailed information about its “so-called” irregularities, discrepancies, and unauthorised manipulation of the provisional register despite several appeals by the Commission.
“For instance, on Page 2 of their petition to the EC, the NDC stated emphatically that they have uncovered evidence of 243,540 illegal transfers, 3,957 deleted names of voters, as well as over 15,000 unidentified voter transfer paths in the provisional register.
“Yet weeks after the NDC first met the EC on September 6, 2024, they have still not provided a single document to authenticate any of these allegations. We ask, is this not interesting?” he said.
Mr Koduah said if the NDC had any evidence of illegal transfers, they would have submitted evidence for such an illegality to be reversed by the EC.
He said the NPP believed strongly that the nationwide demonstration by the NDC would have been justified had the Commission failed to act after receiving evidence from the NDC on the alleged irregularities and discrepancies.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
