General News of Thursday, 2 May 2013

Source: peacefmonline

Afari-Gyan should be celebrated - Ofosu Ampofo

The former Eastern Regional Minister, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, says Ghana should celebrate Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan, for his hard work over the years as Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC).

He proposed that the EC Chairman should be honoured for transforming the face of Ghana’s elections.

He emphasized that, under the leadership of Dr. Afari Gyan, the country has made giant strides in organizing transparent and fair elections for six consecutive times.

He touted some achievements of Dr. Afari Gyan.

According to him, due to his able leadership, the country’s elections have seen tremendous transformations from the usage of opaque ballot boxes in previous elections to transparent boxes.

He added that the advent of a biometric process in the elections could not have been possible without Dr. Afari Gyan, whom he believed has been very competent in all the elections held under his jurisdiction.

He, therefore, called on the entire nation, to “celebrate somebody like Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, who has seen this country through about six elections and over the years, through the collaboration between the Electoral Commission, Civil Society Organization, Development partners and the political actors, we’ve been able to refine our electoral processes; starting from opaque ballot boxes to transparent boxes. Starting from voters register, thumbprint to photo ID and then, we have come to biometric.”

Touching on the ongoing election conflict between the three leaders of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Electoral Commission challenging the validity of votes cast for President John Dramani Mahama during the 2012 general elections, Hon. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo stated without any doubt that the elections were transparent devoid of the allegations levelled against the President by the petitioners in the case.

He explained that, it is impossible for any country to conduct foolproof elections, and expressed surprise that a person could think that there would be nothing wrong with the elections.

He wondered why the NPP during the December 7 polls last year were in ecstacy even before the final results were declared, but since it did not favour their Presidential candidate would now claim there were irregularities in the electoral process.

To him, the mere fact that there are mistakes in the petitioners’ exhibits presented in court, indicated that no one is infallible, and they should expect that typographical and clerical errors could also occur in the electoral results.