Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, has formally petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to launch an investigation into the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana.
The petition, filed on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, accuses the EC of “constitutional, statutory, and administrative breaches” linked to the controversial disposal of electoral equipment as scrap.
In the petition signed by Cudjoe, IMANI argues that the EC failed in its fiduciary duty to manage state resources responsibly, particularly critical during Ghana’s current economic challenges under an IMF-supervised fiscal programme.
"This morning, I instructed that IMANI submit a petition to CHRAJ to probe the Electoral Commission’s conduct in what has now become the infamous ‘firesale of electoral equipment for scrap’ scandal,” Franklin Cudjoe stated.
“In a period where Ghana is struggling to meet its debt obligations, such reckless management of public assets is unacceptable.”
The think tank criticized the EC for prematurely retiring and scrapping tens of thousands of valuable devices, including laptops, fingerprint verifiers, scanners, printers, and digital cameras, many of which cost over $3,000 each. IMANI contends these items could have been repurposed for use by other government agencies or disposed of transparently in accordance with the Public Procurement Act.
According to the petition, the EC’s decision appears to be driven by motives that conflict with its legal and ethical responsibilities.
“We expressed deep concern that the EC’s actions reflect a conflict between its legal duty to safeguard public resources and an apparent preference for decisions that benefit certain commercial interests,” the petition stated.
IMANI further alleged that the EC’s actions were part of a broader effort to obscure its procurement history and erase evidence that could challenge the narrative it presented during the 2020 electoral cycle. At that time, civil society groups had pushed back against the EC’s claims that the equipment in question, dating back to 2011, was obsolete.
“We believe the EC's disposal methods were intended, in part, to conceal inventory records and physical evidence that contradict years of misleading statements. Furthermore, they facilitated potential profiteering by private beneficiaries, a textbook example of corruption, defined as the abuse of public office for private gain,” IMANI asserted.