The image of the Electoral Commission (EC) was further dented when officials of the commission, including the two deputy commissioners in charge of operations and corporate services, were asked to leave the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing for not adequately preparing to answer queries raised in the Auditor General’s report of 2013.
This was in relation to an expenditure of GH¢1.6 million by the EC’s Western Regional office in 2012, which the officials said they did not know anything about.
The chairperson of the EC, Charlotte Osei, absented herself from the PAC’s sitting yesterday, raising eyebrows as to why she could suddenly find reasons to absent herself, even though she led EC officials to face the Special Budget Committee of Parliament last week.
When the two deputy commissioners were asked why the chairperson could not come with them, the deputy commissioner in-charge of corporate services, Georgina Opoku Amankwah, said her boss had travelled outside the country.
The financial impropriety that caught officials of EC panting at the PAC sitting, according to the Auditor General, was that in the Western Regional office of the commission, officials spent GH¢1.6 million in 2012 without any supporting documents while an additional GH¢1.3 million was added for extra expenses. But the office was not able to account for GH¢155,452 of that money, meaning that the total amount of money which could not be accounted for by the office was about GH¢1.7 million.
The Director of Finance, Joseph Asamoah, who was given the difficult task of explaining those discrepancies, said the EC was only aware of an unaccounted amount of GH¢155,452 by the office.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai and member of PAC, Kingsley Aboagye-Gyedu, who raised that issue, said he was completely shocked that an important and very revered institution, which is charged with organising national elections, could make such a mistake and become a laughing stock at such a public hearing.
He told DAILY GUIDE that if the EC, after three years of audit of its accounts, did not know that its Western Regional office had made such expenses, then political parties, especially the opposition ones, must advise themselves accordingly
“I want to tell the opposition parties, particularly my party, that if the EC without any pressure can make such a mistake, then we must not trust them to be diligent in giving accurate numbers during elections which are conducted under pressure,” Mr Aboagye-Gyedu said, adding that the NPP officers must go into the elections with their own EC in their pocket and teach their agents to be very vigilant at the polls and also know how to collate election figures accurately.
“We cannot rely on the EC, given what has happened here today; and that in this year’s elections we would have to go to the polls with our own referee and be very vigilant because it is clear that the EC could make a lot of mistakes,” the Bibiani-Anwhiaso-Bekwai MP said.
On the election itself which is scheduled to take place on November 7 this year, deputy commissioner Ms Opoku Amankwah told journalists at the PAC hearing that the EC had already finished with its work on the new date and the bill had already been submitted at the Attorney General’s office.
According to her, cabinet would have to look at it to give its consent and then to the Council of State before it would be laid in Parliament for approval and final gazetting.
The deputy commissioner in-charge of operations, Alhaji Amadu Sulley, also told the committee that the cleaning of the register would be done during its exhibition, which will take place between July 18 and August 17, 2016.
He could not give a specific answer as to whether those who registered with the National Health Insurance card would be affected. He said that EC would be going to the Supreme Court on that today.
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