The National Democratic Congress is demanding an independent audit into the newly compiled voters’ register.

The claims by the opposition party comes after the chairperson of the Electoral Commission Jean Mensa revealed that there are still foreigners and minors on the newly created voters’ register.

She, however, said mechanisms put in place by the commission will clean the voter’s roll of the illegal persons on it.

“The Commission is mindful of the infiltration of foreigners at a number of our registration centres. Additionally, we are aware that a number of minors have found their way into the register.

“We are confident that the challenge processes initiated at all districts throughout the country will unearth these illegal persons and rid the register of those who do not qualify to be thereon.”

But speaking at a Press Conference on Thursday, the NDC rejected the claims of the EC. According to the party, it’s impossible for a biometric system to record multiple registration.

Director of Elections for the NDC Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said the the move by the EC to delete such names are politically motivated.

“The only thing the compilation of the new register has achieved for the NPP is that it has brought untold shame to the party and demolished the propaganda of Akufo-Addo and Bawumia which was echoed by the EC that our voters’ register was bloated.”

 

Below are details of the speech of Mr. Afriyie Ankrah

Press Conference on the Voters Registration Exercise Addressed by Hon. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Director of Elections of the National Democratic Congress, 13th August, 2020, Party Headquarters, Accra.

Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen from the media for making time to join us at this all-important Press Conference.

On behalf of the National Democratic Congress, I wish to particularly commend you for your role in covering the Voters’ Registration Exercise throughout the country, highlighting the numerous problems that characterized the exercise. But for your tireless efforts, many Ghanaians wouldn’t have known what was going on at various Registration Centres across the country.

The EC kept changing the rules governing the registration during the registration process. For instance, the EC suddenly decided to carry out registration at their District Offices which were not gazette for this purpose. They also suddenly decided to deploy mobile registration vans to Senior High Schools.

We also wish to use this opportunity to salute all Ghanaians for their resilience and fortitude throughout the Voter Registration Exercise. Ghanaians all over the country defied the risk of COVID-19 infections that the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission exposed them to through crowded registration centres and systematic voter suppression at some registration centres. We shall be addressing the following issues at this press conference:

  • The Unprecedented Violence, State Sponsored Intimidation and Voter Suppression During the Voters Registration Exercise
  • The Systematic Discrimination Against and Attacks on Minority Groups
  • The NPP and the EC’s Propaganda and Unfounded Allegations of a Bloated Register by Foreigners Exposed
  • EC’s Claims of Multiple Registration and Deduplication
  • The Truth about the Arrest of 66 Ivorians in Banda Constituency
  • Anomalies in the Voters Registration Data Published by the EC

 

THE UNPRECEDENTED VIOLENCE, STATE SPONSORED INTIMIDATION AND VOTER SUPPRESSION DURING THE VOTERS’ REGISTRATION EXERCISE

As you are aware, the voter registration exercise was characterized by unprecedented violence resulting in severe injuries to scores of Ghanaians. For the first time in the history of the Fourth Republic, innocent citizens have lost their lives by merely going out to exercise their democratic right to register and vote. This is simply sad and unacceptable. The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has corroborated the unprecedented violence that characterized the Exercise. The state violence and intimidation aimed at voter suppression equally attracted the attention of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

This notwithstanding, the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission in its numerous Press Conferences and releases appears unconcerned about these incidents that adversely affected the exercise and prevented some people from registering just as it did in the Ayawaso West Wuogon Bye-Election violence.

We wish to extend our condolences to the families of those who painfully and needlessly lost their lives and wish all those who were injured a speedy recovery.

With all these, President Akufo-Addo looked Ghanaians in the face, and told them that he is not aware of the incidents of violence at some registration centres; neither has he heard nor seen any of the state sponsored intimidation, violence and harassment aimed at suppressing votes especially in NDC strongholds. He has also not heard about the gun shot fired by his Rambo Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Hawa Koomson, at a polling station. Obviously, he is also not aware of calls for Hawa Koomson’s resignation or dismissal. Interestingly, he was quick to hear about the riots in Senior High Schools and immediately issued a directive to that effect. This is a clear symptom of selective amnesia.

We reject Akufo-Addo’s claims that he was not aware of the incidents of violence and voter suppression around the country. If he claims he doesn’t know what is going on, doesn’t he watch television or listen to radio or read newspapers? Doesn’t he tweet and make posts on Facebook every blessed day? If he doesn’t do any of the above, what happened to the routine security briefs that he gets as Commander-in-Chief?

It is only a president who is dishonest and not God fearing who will be telling Ghanaians, including the clergy, in the face of overwhelming evidence that he doesn’t know what is going on in this country. It is this dishonesty that has permeated his government right from his inaugural speech where he plagiarized bringing collateral international embarrassment to Ghana. There have been many instances that his dishonesty has manifested. Even before Parliament, Akufo-Addo submitted wrong data on the economy. It took the International Monetary Fund to expose him and his government.

This is why Ghanaians are in a hurry to vote him out of office. The participation of majority of Ghanaians in the Voter Registration exercise in spite of all these challenges is a testimony to this. As the NDC has said over and over again, kicking Akufo-Addo and the NPP out on December 7 is a rescue mission that we must execute together as communal labour. All Ghanaians must get involved and get on board.

 

 

 

 

THE SYSTEMATIC DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITY GROUPS 

Ladies and Gentlemen, article 35 Clauses (5) and (6) of the 1992 Constitution state that

(5) The state shall actively promote the integration of the peoples of Ghana and PROHIBIT discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of place of origin, circumstances of birth, ethnic origin, gender or religion, creed or other beliefs.

(6) Towards the achievement of the objectives, stated in clause (5), the state shall take appropriate measures to:

  • Foster a spirit of loyalty to Ghana that overrides sectional, ethnic and other loyalties.
  • Provide adequate facilities for and encourage free mobility of people, goods and services throughout Ghana.

This is the constitution that Akufo-Addo swore to defend and protect. Unfortunately, we are all witnesses to the state sponsored acts of national disunity and systematic marginalization of non-Akan speaking Ghanaians. Under Akufo-Addo, birth certificates are not adequate proofs of citizenship. The only evidence of citizenship is the ability to speak Twi. The strangest thing we have witnessed is the issue of a birth certificate not being proof of Ghanaian citizenship and yet the same document is used as proof of citizenship to obtain a Ghanaian passport and a Ghana card. The logic is difficult to accept. Rather than challenge prospective registrants who are perceived to be unqualified, as provided for under C.I 94, the NPP and their collaborators in the military would prefer to physically use violence to prevent such Ghanaians from registering as happened in the Eastern border of the country. We all saw the horrible and horrendous video footages.

 

THE NPP AND THE EC’S PROPAGANDA AND UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS OF A BLOATED REGISTER BY FOREIGNERS HAS BEEN EXPOSED

 

After discrediting itself before the people of Ghana, the EC is investing in press conferences and propaganda as a tool for damage control. We wish to advise the EC to rather invest in integrity, truthfulness and honesty.

One of the reasons the EC decided to compile a new register was the NPP’s claim that the voter’s register was bloated. This hoax that there are foreigners on the voter’s roll was the primary motivation for compelling the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission to compile a new register.  Today, the veil has been lifted and it is clear for all Ghanaians to see that the claim of a bloated register by the NPP and the EC is not only unfounded but part of a grand plan to compile and manipulate a new register to support Akufo-Addo’s re-election. This was the main reason why they decided to compile a new voters’ register at a humongous cost of approximately $150m (Gh¢1 Billion), even in the face of a deadly pandemic.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this 1 Billion Ghana Cedis that has been wasted on the compilation of a new register could have built 5000 six-unit classroom blocks at the cost of Gh¢ 200,000 per block which would have helped addressed the obnoxious double track system at Senior High Schools. This same amount could have constructed over 600 kilometres of concrete road. In effect, the amount spent on the register could have constructed a dual carriage road from Accra to Kumasi and beyond.

So far, from the EC’s own provisional figures, 16,963,306 persons have registered. The voters on the old voters, register was 16, 845, 420. Now we shall proceed to establish how hollow and statically false the claim by the EC and NPP is.

The NPP in particular, at their recent press conference, quoted copiously from the Justice Crabbe Committee report to back their claim of a bloated register. We also rely on the same report to do this analysis. The report stated that about 580,000 cumulatively between 2012 and 2016 would have died but their names would have remained on the register, thereby bloating it. If we are to use the same projection, then between 2016 and 2020 another 580,000 would have died within the 4-year period as happened between 2012 and 2016. In effect therefore about 1, 160, 000 people who would have died will still have their names on the old register. In other words, the people who are alive on the old register would be about 15,685,420. Our argument has always been that in a boimetric voter register regime, dead people don’t vote and no impersonation can take place since voters have to be verified before they can vote. This means that in reality the living people on the old register would have been left with about 15,685,420. If the EC had then carried out a limited Voter Registration Exercise as the NDC and other Civil Society Organizations had advocated for, an addition of about 800,000 people would have been registered onto the register in which case the final figure would have been around 16,485,420. This figure compares favourably with the final figure of 16,963,306. Again, as a result of the closure of our borders, the fear of contracting COVID-19 and the unprecedented state sponsored violence and voter suppression, some people did not register.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the above analysis shows clearly that the old register was after all not bloated and the EC has ended up at square one.

What the EC has succeeded in doing to Ghanaians is to inflict pain on us, subject and open Ghanaians to the dangers of covid 19, and finally waste our scarce resources on a needless venture of compiling a new register at the cost of about $150million.

As we have told Ghanaians time and again, the real reasons for the compilation of a new register is premised on the observation in the 2019 Human Rights Report of the United States of America which states “The June ouster of the Electoral Commission Chairperson and the president’s subsequent staking of the Electoral Commission with persons considered to be biased in favour of the ruling party raised questions about whether the body might be used to stifle voter registration among the opposition’s base”.

Among other things the objective was to:

  1. To suppress votes from opposition strongholds and compile a new register to help the failed Akufo-Addo government retain power against the will of the people.
  2. Deploy their national security militia to intimidate Ghanaians at registration centres as part of the voter suppression strategy.

All these well-orchestrated moves by the EC and its accomplices to foist Akufo Addo and the NPP on Ghanaians for 4 more years will not wash.

The only thing the compilation of the new register has achieved for the NPP is that it has brought untold shame and disappointment to the party and demolished the propaganda and long held conspiracy theory of Akufo-Addo, Bawumia and the New Patriotic Party which was echoed by the Electoral Commission that our voter’s register is bloated by the inclusion of foreigners particularly Togolese. Now that they sealed our border with Togo in this exercise look at the results of the registration. And this does not even include Ghanaians who were legitimately domiciled in Togo and were caught by the covid 19 restrictions and could therefore not come home to Ghana to register. We pray that this will bring an end to the NPP’s delusion that our register is bloated.

We wish to assure Akufo-Addo and his NPP that those who are waiting eagerly for 7th December to vote them out are in this country, they are not from Togo or anywhere. He should therefore hurriedly prepare his handing over notes and advise all his appointees to do same.

We wish to call on our supporters to be extremely vigilant as we go through the processes of de-duplication, exhibition, balloting and on voting day 7th December. Just as you came out in your numbers to register, we are encouraging you to come out in your numbers during the exhibition to confirm your names on the register. Let us work hard to mobilise all our supporters, sympathizers and the millions of disenchanted Ghanaians who are disappointed in Akufo-Addo’s government including NPP members to vote for the NDC come December. Victory beacons, your labour will not be in vain.

 

CLAIMS OF MULTIPLE REGISTRATION AND DEDUPLICATION

Ghanaians will recall that one of the justifications the EC raised to spend our taxes on the compilation of this needless new register was the fact that it needed to replace its system with a more robust system including the introduction of facial recognition technology.

Technically, any credible biometric system is able to detect duplicate registration in real time and address same.

It beats our imagination that this exercise that is being conducted in the midst of a deadly pandemic that people will move from one registration centre to another to engage in multiple registration. For what reason will they do that?

If there are any records of multiple registration, the EC may have to examine the causes internally as we are reliably informed that the EC’s own biometric system is defective and is therefore duplicating registrants by itself.

For the NDC to accept any deduplication exercise, we shall demand strict proof from the Electoral Commission.

We are therefore calling for an independent audit of the entire register in relation to multiple registration. Details of all those confirmed to have engaged in multiple registration including their photographs, ID numbers, centres where they engaged in multiple registration among others.

We are highly suspicious of this move because we are aware that the management of the EC has transferred almost all the experienced ICT experts at headquarters to various regions in order to facilitate the agenda of rigging the elections for the NPP in December. Currently, non-IT staff are being transferred and will be replaced with persons with questionable political proclivities. In effect, Jean Mensa and Akufo-Addo have compromised the Electoral Process. We hope that the so-called deduplication will not be an excuse to delete the names of persons who belong to certain ethnic groups.

We believe that this comprehensive audit will also help address our observation during the pilot registration exercise where there were cases of ‘false matches’ owing to system failure in order to ensure that genuine persons are not disenfranchised.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ARREST OF 66 IVORIANS IN THE BANDA CONSTITUENCY 

Ladies and Gentlemen, as has been reported by UTV, through the vigilance of our agents in Banda, we were able to expose the NPP’s hypocrisy. While Akufo-Addo closed our borders and was using the military and his vigilante groups to prevent eligible Ghanaians from registering, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate and Executives in the Banda Constituency were busily colluding with EC officials to register foreigners who have no place on our voter’s register. Below is a detailed account of events:

  1. Our vigilant agents spotted the Ivorians and tried to stop them from voting but they were advised to rather challenge them to avoid any violence.
  2. NPP executitves insisted and brought pressure to bear on EC officials to register the foreigners.
  3. Our agents and executives therefore filled the challenge form and challenged all the 66 Ivorians who were brought in by the NPP to register.
  4. Even after that instead of the EC ensuring that these persons go through adjudication to prove their eligibility as required by law before issuing them their voter ID cards, they flagrantly breached the law, ignored the adjudication process and issued the cards to them. Our executives were left with no choice than to cause their arrest.
  5. The 66 Ivorians were therefore arrested.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the character of the Akufo-Addo and the NPP you elected into office. He closed our borders in March due to the coronavirus pandemic but before the registration exercise, he did a selective deployment to our borders. They mounted a sustained campaign and propaganda shouting on the roof tops that there were foreigners on our voters register as the reason for calling for the compilation of a new register only to turn around and to open the border for Ivorians to enter and register. If this is not hypocrisy, then I don’t know what it is.

Having been exposed, John Boadu and the NPP shamelessly called a Press Conference to accuse the NDC for a crime that they the NPP committed.

We wish to assure the people of Ghana that we shall pursue this matter to its logical conclusion. We are calling on the Electoral Commission to thoroughy investigate how persons whose eligibilities were challenged found ways of obtaining their voter ID cards without going through the adjudication process. We are calling for the prosecution of all the NPP and EC officials who connived to commit this grievious crime. The names of all the 66 Ivoirians must be deleted from the register immediately.

ANOMALIES IN REGISTRATION FIGURES FROM THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION.

Ghanaians will recall that during the registration exercise, we had cause to draw the attention of the Electoral Commission of the wrong registration figures they posted in the Ashanti Region and other places.

These deliberate manipulation of figures which is being described as ‘mistakes’ would not have been noticed but for the vigilance of our agents and executives across the country. The phenomenon is not only unacceptable but very indicting on the Electoral Commission.

NDC DATA vs EC DATA

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have discovered discrepancies in the data we collated and that of the EC some of which the EC has referred to as “mistakes” emanating from reports submitted by their officers from the regions. Interestingly while these “mistakes” are over-reporting figures in our opponent’s stronghold, they are under-reporting figures in ours.

In the Ashanti Region, the EC has so far reduced figures they initially published by over 40,000 following our diligence. There are more corrections to be made to the Ashanti Region figures that we shall engage the Electoral Commission to correct the anomalies.

In the Oti Region the EC under reported the figures by 10,127 at the end of phase 2. We drew the attention of the EC but they continued to under publish the figures. At the end of phase 4 the EC under published the Oti figures by 14,124 (EC-226,109/NDC-240,233). Our continuous engagement with the regional EC office has resulted in a current deficit of 1079 (EC- 357,267/NDC-358,346) as at the end of phase 6. We expect nothing short of total correction of the figure from Oti.

EC DATA vs EC DATA

The EC has been consistently inconsistent with the figures they have put out through their ‘Let The Citizens Know’ media encounters. On July 10, 2020 the EC put out a figure of 3,442,954 comprising 2,264,207 for the first 6 days and 361,030;   418,610 and 399,107 for the seventh, eight and ninth days respectively. However, on July 28, 2020 the EC put out 2,202,405 for the first 6 days, 61,802 less than what was initially reported for same period. Also, data collated for the seventh, eighth and ninth days were differently reported.

  10th July 28th July 7th August
PHASE 1 2,264,207 2,202,405 2,203,445
PHASE 2 N/A 2,219,519 2,229,307
PHASE 3 N/A 3,825,216 3,829,299
PHASE 4 N/A 3,383,340 3,312,670

 

The table above shows how the same Commission reported figures for the first four phases differently on different dates.

Again, evidence available to us shows that in the Efigya Sekyere East Constituency, the registration exercise at the District office of the EC which was reserved for the aged and persons with disabilities was used to register minors.  We have credible and incontrovertible evidence that the District Electoral Officer for Sekyere South by name Emelia Anderson applied to the MP in a letter dated 7th March, 2020 for financial assistance of an amount of 14,000 cedis to support her in pursuing a Master’s Degree Programme at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. We are by this medium calling on the EC to investigate this conduct of the electoral officer in question and take the necessary disciplinary actions against her since this act compromises her independence and brings the name of the EC into disrepute.

In conclusion, we wish to once again commend all Ghanaians for their resilience, commitment and fortitude throughout the registration exercise in the face of the violence, intimidation, brutalities, attacks and the risk of COVID-19 infections. Having endured all these shenanigans in order to get your names unto the voters’ register, we are encouraging you to check during the exhibition of the register to ensure that your names are on the register in order not to be disenfranchised on 7th December.

With the same vigilance and enthusiasm that we monitored the registration exercise, we must remain even more vigilant in the deduplication, exhibition and balloting and most especially protecting the ballot on 7th December.

Thank you

 

 

 

Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM