EC Accuses NPP of Misconstruing E-Transmission Decision

Ghana’s electoral body has accused opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) of misconstruing its decision to let the electronic transmission of the December 7 election results to a private company.
Head of Communications at the Electoral Commission (EC), Eric Dzakpasu, says the Commission will invite political parties for deliberation before a decision would be taken on the matter.
“We have written to the companies to come to the premises of the Electoral Commission and do a demonstration so it is at this level that we bring in the critical stakeholders, the political parties,” he told Joy News.
NPP has expressed a lack of faith in the decision by the EC to transmit the December polls electronically citing lack of transparency in the system.
NPP Campaign Manager, Peter MacManu, berated the Commission for distancing political parties in decisions leading to the opening of tender for businesses to bid for the contract.
This claim by the NPP was swiftly opposed by both the EC and governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) accusing it of hypocrisy.
At a news conference addressed by the party’s chief scribe, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the NDC described the NPP’s claim of non-involvement of political parties in the decision to electronically transmit the general election results as false.
Contrarily, it was the NPP that proposed the use of the system which will ensure that all constituency results are scanned and faxed to the National Collation Center (NCC) here in Accra.
NPP’s MacManu retorted saying it rather argued the “usual strong room concept which is very small, media people are not allowed, and the public do not see what goes on should give way to a more public, open and transparent system of transmitting results.”
“That is what we called for and if you go to Electoral Commission’s website what is there is the National collation Center. The 27 reforms they have listed there do not include anything on providing handheld scanners because it is not a major item. It came under the banner of the National Collation Center,” he said.
But the Commission says it will not take a conclusive decision on who to award the contract to and operationalisation of the system in the upcoming election without meeting with the political parties.
He says the system is not cumbersome and would ensure efficient correspondence between the Commission and its operatives at all levels.
When the collation is done at the Constituency level, all the polling results are going to be on a collation sheet with signatures of polling agents.
It would then be scanned and electronically transmitted to the National Collation Center (NCC) in Accra.