The main opposition political party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), failed to attend the maiden Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting of the current Electoral Commission (EC) held today.
This is because, the NDC received the invitation letter a few minutes after 12noon on the day of the IPAC meeting which was held at 1pm.
Today’s IPAC meeting was the first of its kind after the appointment of the new EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa and her two Deputies and a commissioner.
Explaining why the NDC could not attend the meeting, the National Organizer, Kofi Adams told Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen which was monitored by PrimeNewsGhana on Wednesday that “we received the invitation letter 14-minutes after 12noon today and the meeting was to have start at 1pm...that is when we received the letter...the Director of Administration at the Headquarters received the invitation letter which was even a photocopy letterâ€.
“How can we go for such meeting...all of us were engaged....all the executives were engaged in one way or the other because the letter came lateâ€, he explained.
Mr. Adams said, “they [EC] are coming to do the limited registration exercise and the referendum and it is very bad and poor on the part of this Commission and the Commissionerâ€.
Reacting to the issue on the same programme, the Head of Communications at the EC, Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, confirmed that the NDC could not make it to the meeting.
He admitted that letters were distributed to the political parties late but explained that, “we followed it with a text message to those who usually attend the IPAC meetingsâ€.
“Yes, the time was too short and we admit. We dispatched the letter on Monday and also sent them SMS. We dispatched the letters Monday evening but because of the holiday, they dispatched it this morning [Wednesday] but we sent SMS to all the repsâ€, he explained.
Mr. Dzakpasu said the NDC could have sent a representative to at least, register their displeasure just as other political parties did.
“The other parties came to register their displeasure about the last minute invitation so they should have also come because we apologize to the restâ€, he explained.