I had all but decided to throw in my lot with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) call for an independent audit of Ghana’s electoral roll! Having consumed a lot of information on the issue, especially the five-point call by the NDC, plus convincing analyses by credible think tanks, I asked, why not?

I had been persuaded by the caution raised by Prof. Stephen Kweku Asare, that “an anti-audit EC risks being seen as having something to hide”, and that “it is in the interest of any EC to support an independent audit unless whatever the EC is hiding is worse than what rational people assume it is hiding.”

What decided me even further was a shocking news item in the ‘Daily Guide’ of 2015. It was a communiqué issued on October 28, 2015, at the end of an Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) debate on whether or not to replace the register because it was “bloated” with illegal entries.

The IEA, in that communiqué, was asking the Electoral Commission, chaired (in 2015) by Charlotte Osei, to “show proactiveness and leadership by engaging the services of a competent, credible and external organization to audit the electoral roll”!

Guess who signed the communiqué: self-same Jean Mensa, in her capacity, then, as Executive Director of IEA.

Read the Jean Mensa 2015 communique’s reason for recommending an independent audit. It pointed out that “though Article 46 of the Constitution protects the EC from direction or control, it is nevertheless accountable to the citizens because it is a public organisation that draws its funds from the Consolidated Fund.”

While the participants were undecided on whether to purge the register or compile a new one, they were unanimous in their conclusion that “the cost of managing a national crisis resulting from a flawed electoral process would be potentially higher than that of having an acceptable register”.

Audit:

Against such convincing arguments from highly placed authorities, I lined myself up behind the call for a forensic audit.

Somewhere inside my head, however, I could hear the loud clangs of the bell of conscience, urging me on toward further and better investigation.

So I called the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), and they gave me Mr Kwesi Jonah, one of its Fellows. Jonah’s position is that while the NDC has a case, an insistence on an “independent” forensic audit is not the way to go.

In urging a middle course, he displays excellent institutional memory.

Jonah reminds Ghanaians that the NDC’s call is not the first time a political party has asked for an independent audit.

In 2008, the NDC, in opposition, alleged that two constituencies in the Ashanti Region had a bloated register. In response, the EC Chair, Dr Afari-Djan, set up a committee made up of NPP and NDC members, with an EC Commissioner as Rapporteur.

The committee found that it was true those constituencies had bloated registers, but they were caused by computer error. The NDC accepted the judgment and the error was reversed.

Note: It was not an “independent” committee. It was an EC committee.

In 2015, then-running mate Dr Bawumia led the NPP, in opposition, to allege that the voter register contained names of Togolese and other African nationals. In response, the EC, chaired by Charlotte Osei, set up a five-member committee headed by Justice VCRAC Crabbe, with Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel.