Provide source of funding for PPE – Minority Leader tells EC

The Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to reveal its source of funding for the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE).

“The Commission should tell the Ghanaian public the source of the funds used for the procurement of its PPE  since they claim these were not provided by the government and these were also not provided for in their budget for 2020,” the Minority leader said in a press statement.

Mr Iddrisu was reacting to a statement in which the EC denied receiving any PPE from the government.

The EC had described as “troubling” a statement by the Minority Leader that the government had chosen to supply the Commission with PPE when doctors, nurses and other frontline healthcare workers were crying for PPE.

“The Commission finds it troubling that the leader of the Minority will put out information of this nature without substantiating its authenticity,” the EC said in a press statement released on May 11, this year and signed by its Acting Director of Public Affairs, Mrs Sylvia Annor.

Provide the source

However, in his press statement released yesterday, Mr Iddrisu  said his earlier press conference on the EC receiving PPE from the government was in reference to a statement made by Dr Serebuor , the Director of Electoral Services of the EC, on April 18, 2020 to the effect that the EC had received enough PPE from the government.

“The EC in its statement alleged that they did not receive any PPE from the government . The question that the EC must answer is how it came by the PPE it claimed were enough for the intended compilation of new voters register.

The EC needed to be reminded that the Commission did not make any provision for the procurement of PPE in the 2020 budget as approved by Parliament in December 2020 since no one anticipated the pandemic at the time of the approval of the budget,” he said.

Integrity

Mr Iddrisu , who is also the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Tamale South, also said the EC should not blame the  Minority Caucus in Parliament over the issues relating to the Commission’s integrity.

“Questions on the integrity of the EC and its leadership are issues of public knowledge and cannot be attributed to the press statement by the Minority Caucus in Parliament.

The exhibition of incompetence and lack of diligence and consequently the integrity of the EC in the eyes of the public is not and cannot be attributable to the press conference of the Minority,” the Minority Leader added.