Bossman Eric Asare
Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission in charge of Corporate Services, Dr. Bossman Eric Asare, has on Monday 25th October, 2021 stated that the Electoral Umpire cannot be said to be accountable to the apex court of the land.
According to the former political science lecturer, Ghana’s Electoral Commission are answerable to the Special Budget Committee of parliament.
We do not account to individuals. We do not account to presidential candidates. The Constitution does not permit that.
As far as Bossman Asare is concerned, reporting regularly to the Special Budget Committee of Parliament is all the need to do.
Bossman Asare made the claim while addressing a Press Conference dubbed Let the Citizen Know aimed at providing an update on the 2020 elections and addressing a number of allegations that have been leveled against the Electoral Commission by the Former President John Dramani Mahama.
Relying on the Constitution of the land to justify the standpoint of Commission, Dr. Bossman said; ‘the Supreme Court is not the platform for the EC to account to the people of Ghana. As far as elections are concerned the Supreme Court is a court for settling presidential election dispute as stated in Article 63 (3) of the 1992 Constitution. That is why the Former President took us to court.
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa had through the 2021 ECOWAS Parliamentary Seminar held in Winneba in the Central region, described the 2020 general elections as historic, credible, and cost-effective.
Responding to her self-glorification, the former President has severally accused the Jean Adukwei Mensa led Electoral Commission of colluding with Innolink Security and Confidential print to print more than one million extra ballot papers for the president of the Republic.
But it seems to Dr. Bossman Asare that Ghana’s Electoral Commission is not in the best shape to determine the winner of elections.
,’The Electoral Commission does not determine and cannot determine who win elections in Ghana; the people of Ghana do. He declared.
The assumption of Dr. Bossman Eric Asare that the Electoral Commission cannot determine who win elections contravenes the functions imposed on the Commission by the 1992.
By law, the Electoral Commission (presiding officer) shall immediately after the close of the poll, in the presence of such of the candidates or their representatives and their polling agents as are present, proceed to count, at that polling station, the ballot papers of that station and record the votes cast in favour of each candidate or question.
Indeed, the organization and declaration of Electoral Results are the preserved of the Chairperson in the case of a presidential election, and Constituency Municipal and District Returning Officers in the case of parliamentary elections.
In fact, without the Electoral Commission’s declaration, any other announcement is otiose, without legal effect.
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