Media personnel blame EC…for misinforming Ghanaians on bloated register

Media practitioners at a two-day workshop, organised by the Electoral Commission (EC) in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cape Coast over the weekend, blamed the EC for misinforming Ghanaians in the heat of the 2008 elections, when the issue of a bloated register came up.

The blame came after the EC Deputy Chairman, David Kanga, told participants at the workshop that the issue raised by Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, then leader of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), that six constituencies in the Ashanti Region had bloated figures, but the situation was that the figures had doubled.

He was quick to add that those mistakes were corrected before the December 2008 general elections.

This statement irritated most of the media practitioners, who stated that this simple explanation could have been given last year to let sleeping dogs lie, but the EC spun around the truth, thereby creating unnecessary tension in the country.

They therefore advised the EC to give vivid explanations of situations, and stop shielding the truth from the public.

Mr. Kanga later said the media should help solve the problem of minors registering, which he said, normally contributed to bloated registers.

He said looking at the issue of spoilt ballots, which accounted for two percent of total votes cast in the 2008 elections, people deliberately spoiled some of the votes, citing an instance in Koforidua, when one voter wrote “look at their faces” on his ballot paper.

He expressed appreciation to the public for the high turnout for the workshop, and the quality of questions participants posed.

Earlier, Christian Owusu-Parry, EC's Acting Director of Public Affairs, said although the media did well in the 2008 general elections, they failed to cover extensively low key events of the commission, such as replacement of identity cards, and the exhibition of the voter's register.

Mr. Yorke Aidoo, EC's Human Resource and General Services Director, explained that there can be only one re-count of election results at the constituency, and that re-count could not be done at any other place, apart from the constituency collation centre.

He said out of 23 cases of electoral disputes, 16 had been solved, while seven were pending.

He condemned the situation where some MPs used their vehicles to convey ballot papers during the elections.

The participants were taken through 'Electoral laws and media responsibility.' It was later agreed that a quarterly meeting between the EC and the media be held to deepen EC-media relations.