With Ghana’s general elections taking place this year, the group of civil society organisations and individuals under umbrella of the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition has rejected proposals by the electoral commission to procure a new voters register and IT system.
The coalition’s position is that the electoral commission has no need to get a new voters register and IT system. The coalition maintains that the electoral commission should instead update and upgrade what it currently has. The spokesperson for the coalition, Mr Kofi Bentil, in a statement at a news conference said that the current voters register had been used recently to conduct nationwide elections with few problems. ‘They cannot, thus, be said to be totally useless. It is our view that the nation does not in the face of the present facts, need to throw out everything and acquire a totally new infrastructure when the present system could be augmented and made capable of performing the task’.
The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition includes IMANI Africa, SEND Ghana, Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability, Financial Accountability and Transparency Africa, Media Foundation for West Africa, Youth Bridge Foundation, West Africa Civil Society Institute, Citizens Movement against Corruption and Human Rights Advocacy Centre. The others are the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Women in Law and Development in Africa, Institute for Democratic Governance, Parliamentary Network Africa, Community Focused Foundation Ghana, PACKSAfrica, and Integrated Social Development Centre.
Source: The Ghana Report
Photo source: David Whillians
