275 Professionals to collate results at constituency level
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Charlotte Osei, has stated that the commission will recruit 275 non-partisan professionals to collate results in this year’s general election.
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This is aimed at ensuring more efficiency in the collation of results in all the 275 constituencies across the country.
In the 2012 election petition at the Supreme Court, it came to light that some of the officials recruited to tally results found it difficult to write the right figures in numerals or in words.
Professionals
According to her, names of selected professionals will be published at the district offices for public screening to determine their non-partisanship after the EC has done its own internal screening to determine same.
Mrs Osei said that on an Accra-based radio and TV news analysis programme, Newsfile.
She said the commission has received letters from the Ghana Bar Association and Chartered Accountants expressing interest in participating in the process.
“This is going to be voluntary work…for God and country,” she said.
Supreme Court recommendations
The new introduction is part of reforms contained in recommendations written by some Supreme Court justices after the 2012 presidential elections landed in court.
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The inclusion of professionals in the elections follows the Nigerian example where academia played a key role in ensuring the process was free and fair in that country.
Mrs Charlotte Osei also noted that the commission would recruit 145,000 Ghanaians as presiding officers and election officials who would be spread across 29,000 polling stations.
The commission is also considering the use of online services as a more effective way to recruit officials.
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