Civil Society Organisation, IMANI Africa, has petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), to have the the Electoral Commission (EC), investigated for improper conduct following the disposal of elections-related equipment.
Announcing the petition on Monday, May 6 through a statement, IMANI’s President, Franklin Cudjoe, said they were gravely concerned by the EC’s “handling of the nation’s scarce resources in the discharge of its duties, which conduct we believe amounts to ‘misappropriation’, ‘wastage’, and ‘misuse’ of said resources.”
IMANI Africa has been one of the strongest critics of the EC after it released an exposé detailing how the equipment in question [biometric verification devices (BVDs)] had ended up at a recycling plant. IMANI’s argument over the past weeks had been that the equipment contained sensitive traces of personal data and voter information which requires extremely thorough protocols that only a few specialised recycling companies can handle.
Read Also: IMANI: Ghana Electoral Commissions’s Dangerous and Pathological Conduct
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“We posit that the EC’s approach to disposing of these electoral items was partly dictated by a need to suppress inventory records and to evade accountability, in light of the spirited
campaign by civil society activists in 2020 to debunk the EC’s claims that the equipment in
question all date from 2011, and are therefore obsolete, and partly by a need to facilitate undue commercial profiteering by the beneficiaries of the EC’s disposal methods,” IMANI said.
However, the Electoral Commission in reaction, had said the equipment had been auctioned because they were obsolete.
“The auction was conducted transparently and all legal procedures were strictly adhered to. The proceeds from the auction were duly deposited in the Consolidated Fund,” Fred Tetteh, Deputy Director in charge of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Commission said last week.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 📢
IMANI petitions CHRAJ to investigate EC for breaking the law.#IMANIAfricahttps://t.co/LDnij5bh92
— IMANI Africa (@ImaniAfr) May 6, 2024
