Ghana’s Parliament has approved GHc826.8 million for the Electoral Commission for the conduct of presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
The Commission had budgeted over 1.1 billion cedis for the polls, with the expectation that some GHc100 million would be used for other administrative expenses.
[contextly_sidebar id=”PVYwhImKU5xGzhH9ai7L30LWJqUocyRi”]This leaves a funding gap of almost GHC400 million.
The Commission expended over GHc 200 million on the 2012 election.
Speaking prior to the approval on the EC’s budget, Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu was concerned about the cost of the conduct of election in the country insisting it’s too high.
“The conduct of elections in Ghana is just too high. The average per capita expenditure on the conduct of elections in Africa is $13, looking at the Ghanaian situation, the last one that we held, it was $18.80. It is anticipated that, for 2016 the figures that they have given us will translates into about $17.69,” the Minority Leader noted.
But Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin disagreed.
According to him the EC‘s demands are justified to ensure that there are credible elections in 2016.
“The Electoral Commission has learnt a lot of lessons from the 2012 election and in fact [they are] experimenting [with] some of the things that they want to implement in the 2016 election like having two verification equipment at each polling station so that in case there is a fault with one, the other one is applied.”
Alban Bagbin said a lot of work is being done by the Electoral Commission in order to further improve on the quality of polls in the nation.
“…definitely the quality of election in Ghana is among the highest in Africa and I think that members have contributed to that. But as we all always state the key word is vigilance.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonoline.com/Ghana