The Founding President of IMANI Africa policy think tank, Franklin Cudjoe, has reiterated his distrust in the activities of the country’s election management body, the Electoral Commission (EC).
He maintained that the EC would not have found it necessary to inform the general public about its missing laptops until the minority in Parliament made the issue public.
At a press briefing in response to the allegation of seven missing Biometric Verification Devices (BVDs) by minority leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the Commission said, “It was during this maintenance that we discovered the theft of five (5) laptops from the Biometric Voter Registration kits, not seven BVDs as erroneously stated.”
However, the president of IMANI Africa did not find the explanations by the EC convincing.
Speaking to Keminni Amanor, host of Ghana Tonight, on Wednesday, March 20, Franklin Cudjoe stated, amongst other concerns, that “I have never trusted the EC and for good reasons, as I stated in that statement. First of all, you know what they did to my people of SALL on the eve of the last elections clandestinely and in a roguish manner just for electoral politics and as we speak, they’ve [the people of SALL] never had a representation and they [the EC] never did anything about it.”
He continued that the actions of the Commission have consistently created doubts about the electoral processes, stating that “look at the last elections, I mean the very thing they did, announcing figures multiple times.”
Cudjoe further maintained that the EC’s actions are far from incompetent but rather a “grand plan” to destroy something.
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“Some people think that it is actually incompetence. I see it as a grand plan,” he said, adding, “When people want to destroy something and you think that they are incompetent at it, it is actually a ruse so you assume that they don’t know what they are doing but they are actually clever at doing it.”
According to the IMANI boss, the EC is looking for an opportunity to waste more money, indicating that the missing laptops could be part of the scheme to procure new equipment.
“They messed us up and wasted that amount of money and now they are finding ways and means and trying to come back and say that they want to spend more money again. Again, the word is true; I don’t trust them one bit.
“When I heard that they claimed they’ve lost some biometric equipment and now they are claiming laptops which is all part of the system anyway, I told Parliament and the Finance Ministry not to entertain them,” he added.
Meanwhile, the minority leader, Cassiel Ato Forson, has called on the Police Service to “immediately issue a statement giving us the details of their investigations so far,” adding, “I am concerned and worried because that devices in the hands of an unknown person can compromise the future elections”.