The Director of Communications for the Bawumia 2024 Campaign Team, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, has admonished political parties and all stakeholders to avoid falsely accusing the Electoral Commission (EC) of compromising the integrity of the electoral process ahead of the 2024 general elections.
He said they should “avoid conspiracy theories” regarding the yet-to-be-returned Biometric Verification Devices (BVDs) to the EC’s headquarters.
“Once I read the statement, my mind was at peace…unless really you are making it from the point of they [EC] not having enough insight into some of these things, so it is completely important that we bring these issues up. What I think we should avoid is conspiracy theories; those things don’t help. Those things only turn to dent the processes,” he told Alfred Ocansey on The Key Points program on Saturday, March 23.
He added that he does not have a problem with the opposition NDC raising such issues, adding that “if there are material facts to it, they can raise it.”
“I don’t think there is anything wrong if they say there are some BVD machines that an internal memo says they are not there, if they feel alarmed, they have every right to raise it. If the NPP identifies something like that, we will raise it, but it is important that the EC also come in swiftly to clarify which they have done,” Miracles Aboagye stated.
Background
On Tuesday, March 19, minority leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson indicated that the EC has confirmed to parliament that the missing seven BVDs cannot be identified.
The minority leader, addressing the press, called on the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service and other security agencies 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”.
However, in a press briefing in Accra on Wednesday, March 20, a Deputy Commissioner at the EC, Dr. Bossman Asare, said, “These allegations are not true. No BVD has been stolen. To set the records straight, the Commission recently undertook routine servicing of its Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) Kits.
“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.
“For clarification, Biometric Voter Registration Kits, which comprise a laptop, camera, scanner, and printer, are entirely separate from the Commission’s Registration Data Systems and are incapable of manipulating election outcomes as suggested,” said Dr. Asare.
Meanwhile, a viral internal memo dated March 7, 2024, captured the EC requesting its regional officers in 10 affected regions to return a total of 28 BVDs to the EC’s headquarters following the District Level Elections (DLE) in December last year.