Information reaching Happy 98.9FM, reveals that an official of the Electoral Commission has been nabbed in the Northern Region by the police for secretly registering potential voters in his house.
In an interview with Kwame Afrifa Mensah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Northern Regional Organizer, Abdullah A. Baba Zee, disclosed that the NDC had alerted the police on this happening and as at now, the official is in the grip of the police.
“This morning, we had a tip-off that some EC officials were in a particular house registering people. So we alerted the police and we went to that place and then they were arrested. But when we got to the police station, they denied any wrongdoing. So upon agreement with the district EC officials and the police, we took the registration kit back to the centre. Then when we got to the centre, we asked that they should produce the close of day print out and when that happened we realized that there were twelve (12) people who were registered this morning in his house between 7am to 8am at his house”, he related.
Abdullah Baba noted that the NDC was able to determine the number of people registered in the official’s house by comparing the close of day print a day before to the close of day print this morning.
“This came to light because yesterday, close of day print was forty (40) and when they did it today it went up to fifty-two (52) which clearly shows that they did the registration in their house. What is interesting is that this very machine was reported to have developed some faults and they were supposed to send it to the Savannah Regional capital that is Damango for maintenance but it ended up in a suburb in the Tamale south constituency where the registration was going on. So as we speak, the data entry clerks and the registration officers for that particular polling station are at the police station”, he added.
He noted that the officer involved in this act initially denied this allegation but in due time, he admitted to illegally registering people at his house.
“By the time we got there, they had closed the registration kit. They claimed that they were charging the machines overnight because the battery had run low. But we were told that they had been provided with generators and enough fuel. When we got there, the generator and the fuel were there and they were not using it. However, one official has even admitted that in his own statement in the police station today”.
The NDC Northern Regional organizer alleged that “the official involved in this was added to the EC officials later by the DCE”.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
