The national president of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church, Mr Matthew Eghan, has announced that the Catholic Church will deploy 2,000 election observers across the country during the 2016 general election.
The observers, who will be selected from all the 20 dioceses of the church, would be deployed across all the regions in the country to help in ensuring a free, fair, transparent and a violent-free election as the nation goes to the polls on December 7.
Mr Eghan announced this at a three-day civic education and election observation training workshop organised by the Justice and Peace Commission of the National Catholic Secretariat in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the Samaritan Villa in Kumasi.
The participants were taken through the roles and responsibilities of election observers and how to gather credible information during an election.
Caution
Mr Eghan cautioned the participants to be diligent as they embarked on their duties and also urged them to be fair in their reportage for the development of the nation.
He also called on all stakeholders to contribute their quota to ensure that the upcoming election was peaceful and added that the attainment of peace before, during and after the election was the responsibility of all Ghanaians.
The Vicar General (VG) of the Kumasi Archdioceses of the Catholic Church, Rev. Fr Louis Tufour, appealed to the various religious groups in the country to use their medium to educate the populace on the need to ensure a peaceful election.
He, however, cautioned that for peace to prevail, there was the need for free, fair and transparency in the running of the election and urged all institutions that have roles to play to desist from any attempt at favouring a particular party in the course of the election.
That, he said, would create the needed enabling environment for all stakeholders to accept the final results that would be declared after the election.
The VG said for justice to prevail, there was the need for the opinions of all to be taken into consideration. He added that the laws of the land must be made to work, after which all would be satisfied with the outcome of the election.
Rev. Fr Tufour said the Catholic Church was ready to play a positive role in ensuring that the election was peaceful and called on others to emulate the gesture.
He appealed to the Electoral Commission to strengthen its relations with the political parties and other stakeholders, saying with good communication among all players in the election, there was no way things would go bad.
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