Cash from voter ID replacements intact – Charlotte Osei

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei has said that that commission has not expended monies it accrued from the replacement of voter IDs for Ghanaians ahead of the 2016 December elections.

According to her, the EC made over GH¢2.5 million from the replacement process and more than GH¢42,000 cedis from the sale of media accreditation cards.

Answering an urgent question filed by the Member of Parliament for Subin, Eugene Antwi on how much the Commission accrued from the process and how it was spent, Charlotte Osei said all monies were currently in the Commission's account at GCB Bank.

Despite her admission of the gains of the commission, she admitted that, the information was not included in the EC's financial statement submitted to the government claiming it was an “oversight”.

“We have opened an account with the Ghana Commercial Bank and all monies we charged for the replacement of lost ID cards went into that account… We have not expended any of that,” she said.

The Commission charged ¢10 from journalists for media accreditation to cover the elections and ¢5 for replacement of lost voter's ID cards.

Charlotte Osei told Parliament that “in sum, we had 4,271 applications from journalists for accreditations. The printer charged GHs8 exclusive of VAT and NHIL cost. In total from media houses, we collected GH¢42,710. We paid to the printer and paid to out 42,713.60 to the printer.”

Meanwhile, the Subin legislator has suggested that the answers given the EC chairperson were unsatisfactory.

He lamented that the fracas between Charlotte Osei and her deputy commissioners spells doom for the country's election management body

“She said that this is her personal explanation. The buck stops with her. It was palpably manifested today, that all is not well with the EC.”

He said he was hopeful that a committee will be put in place to look into issues of malfeasance and malpractices by the Electoral Commission in recent times.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana