The Electoral Commission (EC) has denied claims made by National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer John Dramani Mahama about how the commission appoints members of the New Patriotic Party as returning officers for elections.
According to the EC, Mr. Mahama made this claim during an interview at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
However, the Deputy Director of Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation of the commission, Fred Tetteh, has vehemently opposed these claims in a statement, citing that the process for appointing returning officers and their deputies is through recruitment.
“The Commission rejects this unfounded allegation coming from the former President. The process of recruiting Returning Officers and their Deputies was conducted in an open, fair and transparent manner. Following the publication of the vacancy announcement in the Daily Graphic on the 5th of February 2024, the Commission received a total of 20,561 applications.”
“Per the attached public announcement, the Commission invited ALL interested Ghanaians to apply for the positions of Returning Officers and Deputy Returning Officers. The allegation by former President Mahama that Ministers and DCEs were asked “to write the names of party apparatchiks and present them so that they would be appointed as the returning officers” IS NOT TRUE.”
“An in-house Committee was established to shortlist suitable applicants to be interviewed. For the information of the general public, all successful applicants at the interview have no less than 8 years of working experience with the Commission as Temporal Election Officials.”
READ EC STATEMENT BELOW:
