Politics of Thursday, 15 October 2020

Source: kasapafmonline.com

EC dilly-dallying in court because there was no procurement on BVMs – Ashaiman MP

EC Chair, Jean Mensa EC Chair, Jean Mensa

The Member of Parliament for Ashaiman, Ernest Norgbey has said he believes the Electoral Commission is struggling to release documents of the procurement process of the new Biometric Voter Management System (BVMS) because it has no such documents in its archives.

Speaking to Kasapa News, Mr. Norgbey accused the EC of employing legal gymnastics in an attempt to hide illegally awarded contracts.

“If really those documents were to be there, you wouldn’t be struggling to quash my decision of requesting for those documents or having access to those documents…Per my investigations they did not follow the due process, they did not follow the public procurement Act and so therefore they definitely have something to hide and that is the reason for which I requested for those documents,” he told EIB’s Parliamentary correspondent, Ibrahim Alhassan.

The Electoral Commission has lost its appeal against the decision by an Accra High Court to furnish the MP for Ashaiman with documents related to procurements of new Biometric machines for 2020 elections.

Ernest Norgbey through his lawyers requested for the documents but resorted to the court after the EC turned down the request.

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday by 3:0 decision dismissed the application for stay of execution of the decision of the high court in favor of the MP.

This is after the Election Management Body (EMB) lost same at the Human Rights Division of the High Court in Accra weeks ago when the court dismissed an application for stay of execution from the Commission after the court gave judgment in favour of the Ashaiman MP in July.