The editor-in-chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper has said the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission cannot be responsible for the issues of misappropriation of funds leveled against her by some EC officials.
According to Kwaku Baako who spoke on Peace FM, the bad practices at the EC preceded the assumption of office of Mrs. Osei and she is only suffering from some wrongdoings by her predecessor with regards to transparency and accountability.Â
The substantive issue surrounding the EC saga he said, has to do with contracts and procurement violations which were in existence before Mrs. Osei took office.
He explained that, during the John Kufuor's regime, there was an attempt to set up a procurement committee for the EC, because the President realized there were difficulties with procurement and accountability at the Commission. This however met strong resistance from the National Democratic Congress(NDC).
Eventually, he said, a certain procurement committee was set up based on Dr. Afari Gyan's recommendations in terms of composition.
Prior to that, he recalled, in 2001, Danida(supporters of the EC at the time) presented a report which recommended that the EC system would inherit weaknesses and would face serious accountability issues.
Another report dated August 16, 2015, titled "Conduct of Institutional Assessment and Development of a Strategic Plan for the Electoral Commission of Ghana" by UNDP also revealed certain shortcomings.
Part of the report read "the public procurement regime at the EC remains weak..reports and evidence suggest a continuous widespread abuse in the award of contracts. The framework for addressing irregularities in the procurement processes has significant gaps....political patronage prevails the culture and practice of public sector governance. The public procurement system in the EC is heavily criticized as one of the reasons for the worsening of the public trust to the EC today."
It added that "values with regards to transparent procurement in the field of elections are still missing and the EC suffers from a bad reputation in terms of financial transparency with public procurement.The EC's public procurement activity is the most vulnerable to mismanagement, currently, arrangements for public procurement are deficient."
After two decades of credible elections by the EC, Mr. Baako noted, Ghanaians have forgotten about accountability at the commission.
He continued that an Internal Audit Report on the EC revealed the Commission does not have any designated bank account in which monies are received from political parties for the conduct primaries, are deposited.
For a very long time he said, monies were received by officials of the elections departments in physical cash and subsequently disbursed in same to the various regions.
Furthermore, he said, checks have revealed that, when monies are disbursed to the regions, they are surprisingly paid into the personal bank accounts of the regional directors for onward expenditure on election activities.
The audit team also learnt that no returns were made by the regional directors to account for the expenditure on election activities, a clear violation of the principles of sound financial management.
He said it was therefore recommended that the commission must have a designated bank accounts and signatories to cater for cash/cheque received from political parties and the regions must have similar structures to guard against fraudulent activities.
This Kwaku Baako observed, are issues that must be addressed as far as the EC saga is concerned instead of wasting time on unnecessary personal issues.
He believes the EC has done very well over the years as far as the conduct of elections in the country is concerned, which is acknowledged by the international community. Therefore, proper investigations must be carried out to address the issues.
www.primenewsghana.com /GhanaNews
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â