Lawyer and Senior Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Kofi Bentil has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of disfranchising many Ghanaians in the ongoing voter registration
He asserts that the EC has the resources and is required by the Constitution to expand and carry out particular programmes.
The Electoral Commissioners’ positions could be terminated if there is any deviation from this constitutional mandate, according to Mr. Bentil.
Mr. Bentil explained on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday that the problem is not just about ignoring obligations but also about actively preventing people from registering.
“In omission and commission, it’s not a matter of just omitting, like they are not doing anything, the suggestion is that there will be problems with people exercising their rights to register.”
In his opinion, the EC should proactively implement measures to improve voter registration in order to overcome obstacles.
“The EC was set up to take away those problems, clear the way and create situations that will enable people to register. So they should actually do things, commit actions that will expand registration,” he said.
Mr Bentil maintained that “in this case, if you are not doing it at all, then you are omitting to do your job but as far as I’m concerned, they are actually taking steps, committing actions to stop people from registering which is directly against what they are to do.”
He denounced the use of state resources to undermine public policy objectives, saying “We should all be minded when we do some of these things.”