Director of Elections and IT for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Omane Boamah has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to release the Provisional Voter Register (PVR) immediately.
He said with just six days remaining until the 2024 exhibition of the PVR, political parties have are yet to receive the register.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, Dr. Boamah expressed concern that the EC’s delay stems from both incompetence and a deliberate attempt to present a sub-standard PVR to political parties with insufficient time to scrutinize it before the exhibition begins on August 20, 2024.
He disclosed that on July 18, 2024, the EC requested that the NDC provide a 2-terabyte external drive for the PVR. The NDC complied, also requesting the code books for all 16 regional registers. However, despite this, the EC has not fulfilled its obligation, as mandated by CI 91 and CI 126, for over two weeks.
On August 8, 2024, the EC informed the NDC that the PVR would be released on August 14, 2024, just six days before the exhibition. However, Dr. Boamah noted that the NDC was told on August 14 that the PVR would not be available until Friday, August 16, 2024, leaving only four days to distribute the register to over 38,000 polling stations for pre-exhibition review.
Dr. Boamah criticized the EC’s IT department for its dysfunctionality, highlighting previous issues, such as the chaotic 2023 District Assembly Elections and network failures during the Limited Registration Exercise, Transfers, and Proxies. He emphasized that the NDC suspects these ongoing issues are deliberate attempts to manipulate the electoral roll in favor of one political party, a situation they will resist.
He also raised concern about stolen Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits from the EC headquarters, questioning whether they were used to illegally register voters.
Dr. Boamah called on civil society organizations, religious bodies, and diplomatic missions to closely monitor the EC’s activities, as verbal assurances alone do not guarantee credible elections on December 7, 2024.
READ FULL STATEMENT BELOW
The EC must release the Provisional Voter Register (PVR) now!
With just six (6) days to the 2024 EXHIBITION of the Provisional Voter Register (PVR), political parties are yet to receive the register.
We strongly believe this lack of promptness exhibited by the EC is due to both incompetence and a deliberate attempt to dump a sub-standard Provisional Voter Register on political parties in a short period, to make it difficult for interested parties to critically peruse the register before the Exhibition starts, next week.
The EC wrote to the NDC on the 18th of July 2024, requesting that we bring an external drive (2 terabytes) for the PVR to be loaded for us.
We responded to their request by submitting the external drive with additional request for all 16 regional registers code books.
Unfortunately, for well over two weeks, the EC refused to honor their obligation per CI 91 as amended by CI 126.
Caught with this, the EC surprisingly wrote to us on the 8th of August 2024 now saying they will release the PVR on the 14th of August 2024, six clear days to the exhibition exercise which starts next week on the 20th of August 2024.
This is grossly unfair!
To make matters worse, we are told that today (the 14th of August) we will not receive the Provisional Voter Register until Friday, 16th August 2024. Leaving us with only four (4) days to package and dispatch the register to the over 38,000 Polling stations across Ghana to aid pre-Exhibition scrutiny of the register.
We are aware of the dysfunctional IT Department of the EC, for which we earlier called on the UNDP (@ IPAC) to extend a helping hand to.
The EC has refused and has since not followed up with the UNDP for technical support. Yet, the (deliberate) mistakes keep recurring.
We are deeply concerned that the posturing and incompetence of the EC and its IT Department can plunge Ghana into anarchy if not remedied immediately.
Recall the chaotic 2023 District Assembly Elections, the recent network failures during the Limited Registration Exercise, as well as Transfers and Proxies.
These have exposed the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the EC.
This deliberate attempt to disturb the electoral roll in order to benefit one political party will be resisted!
Already, the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits stolen at the headquarters of the Electoral Commission under CCTV surveillance have still not been found. Have the stolen BVR kits been used to dump illegally registered voters onto the voter register?
The sanctity of our electoral system must be upheld at all times irrespective of who is in power!
We call on CSOs, religious bodies, and diplomatic missions to take an interest in the activities of this current EC because (beyond verbal assurances) the Commission is not SHOWING a commitment to deliver credible elections on December 07 2024.
The EC must release the Provisional Voter Register now!
