“We should not rush them into doing things that will cost the nation...Come election day, if we don’t take time we might actually plunge the country into total chaos and confusion, if we only depended solely on [the biometric voting]” he told Joy News on Friday.
Recently, the government announced the release of GH¢50 million for the project, but the Member of Parliament for New Juaben North, Hackman Owusu Agyemang, on the floor of parliament, Friday, demanded that the chairman of the Electoral Commission be hauled before the House to explain the kind of biometric registration his outfit intends to do.
He told Joy News it was important for all to be assured that it will be verifiable at polling centres during election 2012.
According to him, it would be a waste of the tax payer’s money if all the EC will do is collect biometric data.
Majority Leader Cletus Avoka, Friday, assured the House he will invite the Electoral Commission.
Officials at the EC have assured voters the Commission will in due course make public all that must be known about the process.
Dr. Michael Kpesa Whyte said though the concerns raised by the MP are valid, it should also be noted that there is an array of issues that need to be taken care of.
“We also need to be extremely careful the extent to which we stampede state institutes into rushing to deliver the services for which they have been given money. I think if there is one particular state institution in this country that has credibility for delivering the best results for Ghanaians, it is the Electoral Commission.”
However, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has refuted Mr Whyte's assertion that the EC was being stampeded.
He told Joy News that by the EC’s own timetable, the institution should have identified and contracted a company to work on the system in June this year. It should also have started publicity on it.
He said the EC has also failed to recruit and train persons in July as proposed to be in charge of the election at the polling centres.
He said there is need to establish whether indeed, the Electoral Commission has included in its programme a verification system at the polling station level, which he intimated was very crucial.
He said without the validation system, “We will still have multiple voting, impersonation and there would be incentive to intimidate, harass and stop genuine voters from coming to the polling stations because somebody wants an opportunity to mess with the electoral mandate of the people.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Isaac Essel
Quelle/Source: Myjoyonline, 22.07.2011
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