The Electoral Commission has revealed that the irregularities that landed it in the Supreme Court was due to the caliber of some of the officials used for the 2012 elections.
[contextly_sidebar id=”e2HWGhwzMKnIOZQB3pp4qQ2mS5nljM00″]This they say was evident in the irregularities that were identified during the trial at the Supreme Court.
Ghana recorded a landmark case brought before the Supreme Court by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) over widespread irregularities which took place in some polling centers during the 2012 Presidential elections.
According to a member of the EC, Mrs. Rebecca Kabukie Adjalo, “some of the officials filled the statutory forms by heart” and that amounted to the irregularities that were identified during the case.
“When you look at the caliber of the people that we recruited, most of them were headmasters, most of them were teachers and even through the interaction we had with them, those presiding officers that did not sign, there was nobody that I found below the status of a headmaster, so sometimes it is the nature and pressure of the work,” she added.
Mrs Kabukie said this at a capacity building workshop for journalists in the Western Region.
On recommendations by the Supreme Court, Mrs Kabukie said with the help of some stakeholders, the EC has identified its flaws and is working on rectifying such problems.
She expressed optimism that the 2016 general elections will be more credible indicating that “I expect the overall 2016 general elections to be very transparent, free, fair and the attending problems we had like clerical errors on the forms that were being filled will all be a thing of the past and we have increased the education.”
Mrs. Kabukie Adjalo also charged the media to be circumspect in their reportage and familiarize themselves with electoral laws and avoid sensational reportage.
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By: Obrempong Yaw Ampofo/citifmonline.com/Ghana