Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Mrs Jean Mensa has stated that the team she leads at the country’s election management body is competent and capable of fixing all the anomalies detected in the provisional voters’ register.
National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer for the 2020 general election John Dramani Mahama and his party had described the Jean Mensa-led EC as incompetent due to some glitches detected during the exhibition of the 2020 electoral roll.
However, the EC boss in an apparent response to the former President and other critics on Monday, said she leads a competent, diligent team that is capable of resolving all electoral challenges that may arise due to human and administrative errors.
“It is important to note that the Commission comprises competent and diligent men and women, who fully understand and respect the mandate handed to them by our Constitution.
“We wish to state unequivocally that we have the ability and the competence to fix and resolve all the outstanding issues with the register and we are doing so in an open, transparent and accountable manner”, Mrs Mensa gave assurance to Ghanaians.
The EC Chairperson explained that even though the registration process was technology-driven, there was still some appreciable human involvement, hence, the resulting errors.
She indicated that, “No registration process is foolproof” and “As such, some errors were unearthed during the exhibition process.
“We, however, worked during the entire process to resolve the majority of the issues on the provisional voter register.
“To date, the total number of people reflected on the provisional register, stands at 17,700,726 persons.
“This is an increase of some 44,420”, Mrs Mensa indicated, adding that, “We will not relent but continue to ensure that everyone who registered is counted as part of the register”.
“As a Commission, we will spare no effort in ensuring that every vote counts”, the EC Chairperson added.
According to her, a significant number of the issues identified at the start of the exhibition exercise, have been resolved and that, there will a credible register for the upcoming polls.
“We continue to work to reduce the deficit to the barest minimum and we are confident that at the end of the process, we will bequeath Ghanaians with a register that reflects truth and light; a register that is credible and a register that has integrity.
“This is the spirit and letter of the just-ended exhibition exercise”, she added.
Mrs Mensa reiterated that majority of the names missing from the provisional register have been found and restored except for a little more than 7,000.
She said in the famous case of Ashaiman, where some 7,000 names were also alleged to have been deliberately deleted from the register, all those names have been found on the electronic register with the exception of 165 persons.
“I must emphasise that the deficit constitutes 0.0004 per cent of the total provision voter register”, Mrs Mensa said, but pointed out: “That is not to say that we are not committed to reducing the deficit to the barest minimum”.
