Mensah THOMPSON of ASEPA has accused the Akufo-Addo led government of using the National Communication Authority (NCA), which supplies IT channels that any collation infrastructure relies on, of complicity in electoral fraud in Ghana.
According to the Executive Director of ASEPA, Government decided to shut all these channels down, just to slow its opponents in getting access to their results in record time, whiles they used a dedicated channel probably through a private network they have built for themselves to collate their results leaving all opposition Parties in the dark after the close of polls.
Read bellow the statement of ASEPA..
PRESS STATEMENT
16th December, 2020
ELECTIONS 2020, GOVERNMENT INTERFERED WITH THE TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS BY OPPOSITION PARTIES-ASEPA
Folks, I have heard the General Secretary of the NPP in a news conference chastising the NDC for its inability to collate their own results and that they were able to collate their results a few hours after polls have closed and so the NDC has no case.
Whoever put this logic in John Boadu’s head, either have NO regard for our Constitution or do not understand it.
The Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, enshrines a specific right of every Ghanaian called the “Right to Vote”, (once you are 18 years and above and of sound mind).
This right to vote is expressed through a secret ballot at the polling station.
These ballots are then counted and submitted to appropriate EC quarters for collation.
It is the results counted and declared at the legitimate voting centers in the full glare of everyone that must count and NOT the shoddy collation of fatigued electoral officers.
Secondly there is NO law that says Political Parties must independently collate their own results during elections.
For diligence sake, some parties attempt to collate their own results so they can have some figures to compare with and raise issues when the need be BUT the infrastructure to collate results from 38,000 polling stations across 16 regions is extremely expensive to put together.
In other jurisdictions, the State Sponsors Political Parties during elections and so they get some resources to put some of these things together, In Ghana the State does not sponsor Political Parties and so opposition Parties may find it difficult to raise such huge sums of money for such activities.
Mind you, the Electoral Commission who the conducts elections is given millions of cedis to put together the infrastructure to be able to collate and transmit results across the Country, this EC was giving over GHC600million for this year’s elections, it would therefore be unfair to demand the same level of output from the Political Parties who have been giving nothing by the State.
Secondly, all the IT channels that any collation infrastructure relies on are all heavily controlled by the State through the National Communication Authority, NCA.
The USDD system, the SMS, the Internet are the key mediums of transmission of information and they are all State controlled, it is therefore easy for the State to monitor and sabotage the transmission of results by its opponents, thereby making it difficult for opposition Parties to be able to get access to their results in record time able be able to do any meaningful comparisons at the various collation centers; therefore it would be extremely unfair to castigate any Party who may NOT have access to its results on time and use that as a basis to dismiss a rigging allegation.
Mr.Boadu was NOT only being disingenuous, who was also confirming the crude interference of Government in the transmission of results by opposition Parties.
On the mid-night of the 7th December, Government took down, three main transmission platforms, the USDD platform, the SMS platform and the Internet Platform.
These were the key channels or mediums within which any Party could transmit their results through.
Government decided to shut all these channels down, just to slow its opponents in getting access to their results in record time, whiles they used a dedicated channel probably through a private network they have built for themselves to collate their results leaving all opposition Parties in the dark after the close of polls.
That cannot be acceptable!
Again, whether a Party was able to collate its own results or NOT is largely immaterial!
It is important that we don’t make our elections about who can collate results faster and declare itself winners.
It’s important that we make our elections about what votes are counted at the various polling stations and what are accurately collated and announced!
Elections are about Votes, Votes of the People and NOT collation of figures by Electoral Officials!!!
Mensah Thompson
Executive Director, ASEPA
0542120628
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