The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has requested technical and technological support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the Electoral Commission (EC) with barely five months to the 2024 general elections.
The election is anticipated to be a straight contest between John Dramani Mahama of the NDC and Dr. Bawumia of the NPP.
According to Director of Elections of the NDC, Dr Omane Boamah, the Electoral Commission has demonstrated a lack of technological capacity in its activities ahead of the elections, hence cannot be relied upon.
According to Dr Boamah, this assistance will provide Ghana’s Electoral Commission the needed technical knowhow for a smooth run of the electoral process.
“It’s very clear that the IT Department of the EC is dead. It doesn’t exist. It is this same IT Department that used CorelDraw to calculate people who were registered, embarrassing the Chairperson of the EC.
He added, “The way the IT Department of the EC has gone about its work so far it’s very clear they are not up to the task”
The ruling NPP, although not opposed to the call for reinforcement, said the call should not come from the opposition.
Deputy General Secretary of the party, Haruna Mohammed, says “calling for external body to come to train or offer technical services, I think is the right call. But this should be the mandate of the Electoral Commission based on their needs assessment and also looking at the capacity base of their people.”
Mohammed further added, “it shouldn’t be as if it is them that have called for it.”
Meanwhile the NDC since May this year, has raised concerns over EC’s integrity over missing BVR kits.
The party also questioned the Commission’s preparedness over technical challenges encountered during the voter registration exercise.
