PPP urges EC to use neutral auditors for Nov polls

The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has challenged the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to appoint, at least, two autonomous auditors to management results in the November polls.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Tuesday 15 March, 2016, Chairman of the party, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, argued that such an initiative would ensure transparency and credibility in the upcoming November 7 general elections.

He said it had come to the attention of the party that a budgetary allocation had been made by the EC to procure ICT services for purposes of managing election results in the November polls.

According to him, the commission had invited some firms to express interest in the provision of ICT services, which will include supplying, installing and securing support services for ICT products and logistics.

This will be used to directly capture results in all the polling stations across the country.

The PPP said it supports the idea, but has called for an audit component, as “we have a history where the EC could not publish the results of the verification process in the 2012 elections and [we] cannot leave the exercise to chance for a possible manipulation of the ICT infrastructure.”

Mr Brew-Hammond entreated the commission to invite “at least, two auditing firms, to be part of the process, from the very beginning. The two firms should have full access to the IT platforms and the coding systems for an effective audit of the transmitted results”.

In addition, “the firms should be given the opportunity to crosscheck the work of each other and must be completed before final declaration of the results by the EC”.

Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com/91.3fm