Haruna Iddrisu, the Member of Parliament for Tamale South, has bemoaned the “holier than though” attitude of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) regarding the calls for the audit of the voters’ register.
The lawmaker asserts the Electoral Commission of the United States, per reports from foreign media, is conducting auditing of the US roll to take out ineligible names, and cannot why Jean Mensa is refusing to do same in Ghana.
According to him, the Commission becomes irrelevant, once it refuses to do what is expected of it regarding the elections.
The former Minority Leader tells Keminni Amanor on Hot Issues on TV3 Sunday, September 22, 2024, that Ghana’s democracy has come a long way after three decades to be going through what is happening now.
“Just go to the US, either in Alaska or in Arizona today, there’s a correction of about 100,000 voters on an electoral roll in America. So what is this holier-than-thou feeling or persona that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission seem to be manifesting or want to manifest?
“My strongest view, an Electoral Commission is only relevant to the extent that it serves the Ghanaian electorate and political parties well. You are irrelevant if you cannot serve the citizens well,” he stated.
He further cautioned that the EC desist from acts that will plunge the nation into chaos.
“Today, we all cherish our peace, we want to preserve our peace, we want to preserve the integrity of the elections, safeguard our democracy, we are celebrating 30 years of it. We do not want acts or conduct, omissions or commissions that will soil the outcome of the December 7th presidential and parliamentary elections that can spell doom for the peace and tranquility of the Ghana we love and the Ghana we so cherish,” he charged.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Tuesday, September 17, 2024 hit the streets across all the regions in the country and presented a petition to the EC’s regional offices demanding for a forensic audit of the voters’ roll.
The NDC had said that the integrity of the roll had been compromised, having detected some illegal transfer of voters from one constituency to the other without the knowledge of the persons involved.
After presenting its evidence to the EC, the Commission told the NDC that the errors have all been rectified.
Meanwhile, the NDC is asking the Commission to involve a third party to conduct a forensic audit, saying there are more illegal transfers, amid the EC’s refusal to provide evidence of what it claims it has corrected after the attention was drawn to the anomalies.
2024 voters’ register: EC’s posture on call for forensic audit dictatorial – Justice Atuguba
