A section of participants at the stakeholders forum. INSET: Deputy EC Chairman -Dr. Eric Bossman
Participants at an engagement forum held in Bolgatanga by the ROPAA Consultative and Implementation Committee in the Upper East Region wanted the Electoral Commission (EC) to concentrate on organizing only presidential elections under the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act 2006, Act 699.
Almost all participants were of the view that extending the opportunity to cover all elections would put a huge financial burden on the government and that may affect development and investments in other sectors.
There were also suggestions by some political party representatives, urging the EC not to recruit any of the officials of Ghana’s missions outside so as to ensure that there is fairness in all elections that would be done outside Ghana under the Representatives of the People (Amendment) Act, during the implementation.
The Deputy Chairman of the EC, Dr. Eric Bossman, in an interview in Bolgatanga, said the calls for the EC to focus only on the presidential election under the ROPAA keep coming up and cut across all the nine regional stakeholder engagements on the implementation of ROPAA and they cannot be ignored.
“Everywhere the committee has been, stakeholders have welcomed ROPAA and have agreed that it is good . . . For some participants, the implementation of ROPAA is not a pressing issue and should not be rushed, but others also believe that it is important and must be implemented now.
“They are all entitled to their opinions. For us at the Electoral Commission, our interest is to gather as many recommendations that will come from stakeholders to put together a good document and a CI before Parliament for passage,” he said.
On the issue of recruitment of election officials for elections under ROPAA, Dr. Bossman gave an assurance that there would due diligence in the recruitment, adding that “… the commission will do what is right to ensure that the right thing is done. We do good background checks on officials and we will do same in this case too and publish all names for the public to also scrutinize.”
The ROPAA Consultative and Implementation Committee will be meeting stakeholders from the Savannah, North East and Northern regions at its final regional consultations.
FROM: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga