ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
This has been our policy and practice in times past and will remain so.
As an added measure, our furniture will continually be wiped with alcohol wipes.
Other Covid19 preventative measures that will be observed at all registration centres are as follows: All people entering the registration centre or queuing to enter the registration centre will be required to wear a nose mask.
Upon arrival at a registration centre, each person’s temperature will be taken using a thermometer gun.
Persons with temperatures above 37.8 degrees Celsius will be directed to health personnel at the registration centres or the nearest public health facility.
Special arrangements will be made for them to register.
The Commission will provide liquid soap and water with veronica buckets for mandatory washing of hands before joining the queue or entering the registration centre.
There will be strict observance of physical distance of at least 1 meter in queues at the centres.
Fingerprint scanners will be cleaned prior to the capturing of fingerprints of applicants, using alcohol wipes, Hand sanitizers will be provided for mandatory sanitizing of hands when leaving the centres.
It is important to note that the Ghana Health Service has released some 7000 Health assistants to each of the Registration Centres.
It is expected that the Health Assistants will help ensure strict adherence to the safety protocols outlined by the Commission.
The above health protocols are in line with the government’s safety protocols.
In all these safety measures, we will rely upon your cooperation.
It will not be easy, but with your compliance with the above measures, we should be able to carry out all registration procedures safely.
Special arrangements for the Vulnerable I must mention further that special arrangements have been made for elderly and vulnerable persons during the registration exercise.
All vulnerable people, such as persons with disabilities, pregnant women, and breast- feeding mothers, the aged (60 years and above) and sick will be given priority at the registration centers.
In addition, the Commission has introduced a new facility to serve the aged and vulnerable as follows.
The aged and vulnerable may go to district offices of the Electoral Commission across the country for their registration.
Additionally, they have the option of printing and filling out their forms before they go to the registration centres.
This will help to speed up the registration process.
The Form IA which captures the biometric data as well as guarantee forms can be found on our website .
Please note that the Registration for the aged and vulnerable at district offices of the Electoral Commission starts on Thursday, July 2 nd 2020.
Field staff for the Registration Exercise A major concern a number of citizens have raised with us has to do with the quality of our temporary officers.
We have recruited and trained and deployed over 44,000 temporary officials into the field.
We are confident that the training given them has prepared them to operate efficiently and professionally.
As part of the training we have drummed home the importance of instilling the principles of integrity, fairness and transparency in their actions throughout the registration period to supervise day to day activities of our temporary team.
We have introduced a Code of Conduct which spells out guidelines for their operations.
As part of the recruitment exercise all staff signed an oath pledging to abide by the rules governing their activities.
We have also procured and disseminated various materials to the field.
These include, forms, laminates, indelible ink, toner cartridges, and thumb-print pads.
For the first time we have procured other items we term COVID-19 items and deployed these to the field.
Again, ahead of the Registration Exercise the Commission will deploy 8000 Biometric Voter Registration Kits into the field.
The kits have been thoroughly tested and we are confident that they will function effectively and ensure the smooth and speedy registration of each applicant.
We envisage that with the robustness of the kits as well as the extreme training offered, each applicant should not spend more than (ten) 10 minutes in going through the registration exercise.
Over 500 technicians have been trained and deployed to assist with any technical issues that may arise.
The Commission has also set up Zonal Centres throughout the country.
These Zonal Centres will be manned by our technicians who are expected to ensure the prompt and timely replacement of faulty kits in the field.
We believe that this will contribute to a smooth and seamless process.
Mode of Registration The Cluster system will be used for the voterregistration exercise.
A cluster will consist of five (5) registration centres/polling stations in a district.
In all a total of 6788 clusters made up of 5 polling stations each will be covered.
This means that all 33,367 registration centres will be covered during the registration exercise.
The registration will take place simultaneously in all 16 Regions.
The entire registration will be undertaken in five (5) phases.
Each phase will span a duration of six days.
In effect, a registration team will spend six (6) days at each of the five centres in a cluster, thus making thirty (30) days per cluster.
Six (6) days will be used for the mop up exercise.
We have published the Movement Plan on our website and in the newspapers today.
Transparency of our Processes Distinguished Citizens, it is important to emphasize the transparency of our processes and to allay the fears of stakeholders.
Over the years a number of mechanisms have been built into our processes to tighten the loose screws and ensure transparency and accountability from the registration of voters to the declaration of results.
For the purposes of this exercise I will focus on the transparency embedded into our registration process.
Before the Electoral Commission commences any registration process, it has to provide all registered political parties with 21 days’ notice of its intention to compile or update the register.
This is to afford the opportunity to the Political parties to train and assign agents to the registration centers.
The agents remain at the centers from the start of the process to the end.
At the beginning of each day, the Electoral Commission Officers start the machines/kits in the presence of the Political Party agents.
The kits show the date, time and a record of the number of persons who have registered and should be emoty/zero at the beginning of the day.
At the end of each day, the kit generates a print-out that gives the total number of persons who have been registered in the day.
Each political party is given a copy of the print-out.
The Electoral Commission also forwards the same copy to its data base.
Additionally, the Political Parties on their own, also record the number of persons who are registered per day.
This enables them to confirm this against the print-out from the Electoral Commission.
Indeed any political party with this information can set up its own system to track and record the number of applicants per registration center across the nation on a daily basis.
Furthermore, the entire registration process is monitored by various Observer Groups.
This year we have a good number of observer groups which have showed interest in monitoring the processes.
This will further strengthen our processes.
As a Commission which believes in law and order, peace and security we have engaged consistently with the Security Agencies through the mechanism of the Election Security Task Force.
We are confident that our early and regular engagements will yield positive gains and cause us to witness a peaceful and violence free exercise.
On our part we call on all Ghanaians to work with us to ensure a peaceful Voters Registration Exercise.
Members of the press, dear citizens, ladies and gentlemen, this has been a rather lengthy speech, but I hope it has addressed the most important issues relating to the 2020 Voter Registration Exercise.
On behalf of the Commission I thank all our stakeholders, i.e.
leaders of religious bodies, traditional authority, civil society and the media for their support over the months.
I also thank all of you for your time and the opportunity to speak to you.
We look forward to seeing you, at the registration centres, with your face masks firmly in place, as we embark upon this all-important exercise.
We will carry out this exercise efficiently and safely, God being our helper.
I wish you all a good evening.
LET THE CITIZEN KNOW 19 TH OCTOBER 2020 ADDRESS DELEIVERED BY MRS.
JEAN MENSA, CHAIRPERSON OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION, ON DECLARATION OF RESULTS FROM THE FILING OF NOMINATIONS BY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS ON MONDAY THE 19 TH OF OCTOBER, 2020 AT 4:00 PM Good afternoon citizens of Ghana and our friends from the media.
We thank the good Lord for this day.
His Grace and Mercy has brought us this far and will lead us to peaceful, credible, transparent and fair elections December, 2020 in Jesus’ mighty Name.
On behalf of the Commission, I welcome you to today’s Let the Citizen Know.
Today’s encounter is aimed at updating the public on the just ended Filing of Nominations by Presidential Aspirants who wish to contest the December 7 th 2020 Elections.
As I emphasized during the weeklong process this is one of the most critical activities in the lead up to the December 2020 Elections, without which, the Commission cannot run the Elections.
As a result we designated Monday 5 th October, 2020 to Friday 9 th October, 2020, for this important process.
We thank all our Stakeholders for their cooperation with the Electoral Commission.
It is worth noting that most of the Candidates who filed their nominations presented themselves in a courteous and civil manner.
In a nutshell, we achieved our objective of ensuring a peaceful, seamless and productive exercise.
It has been this Commission’s resolve to provide regular and comprehensive updates at every stage of the electoral process.
Therefore having completed the process of receiving, reviewing and scrutinizing the Nomination Forms and documents from Presidential Aspirants allow me to update you accordingly.
Set up and Conduct of the Nomination Filing Process in 2020 To enhance and ensure a transparent, credible, fair, peaceful and yet accountable electoral process and election in 2020, the Commission continues to develop innovations to ensure that we carry Citizens along in all our processes.
This transparency was evident throughout the Registration and Exhibition Exercises and indeed throughout the week long Nomination process.
As a Commission, we intend to be open and transparent in all our processes and keep you our distinguished stakeholders informed in a timely manner as we inch towards December, 2020.
This year, the Commission made the Nomination Forms to Aspiring Presidential and Parliamentary Candidates available online.
This helped ease the burden of travelling to the Commission to pick up the Forms and eliminated over-crowding at the Commission’s offices, thereby curbing the spread of the COVID 19 virus.
The Commission also developed a detailed Checklist that embodied the criteria to be satisfied by Presidential Candidates as prescribed by law.
This template guided the scoring and awarding of marks by Teams established by the Commission to review the Nomination Forms submitted.
Moreover, four (4) weeks in advance Nomination Forms were made available on our website.
Each Political Party or designated representative was given a unique code to access the Nomination Forms.
This eliminated the incidence of different Candidates of the same Political Party filing nominations for the same position.
Ladies and Gentlemen, This year, the Commission set up two (2) Teams which were tasked to review all the Forms submitted.
The technical team scrutinised the Forms submitted to ensure that Aspirants satisfied the qualifications as set out in the law such as the; age requirements, fulfilment of tax obligations among others etc.
We are confident that both Teams have been thorough and yet fair in their work Yet another welcome innovation was the five (5)-day period provided for the filing process as opposed to the two (2) days provided in previous nomination processes.
This allowed enough time for Aspirants to correct any errors identified in their Forms.
All in all these innovations helped eliminate the confusion and tension that characterised previous nomination processes.
Filing of Nomination Forms by Presidential Aspirants As noted in our last Let The Citizen Know Seventeen (17) Presidential Aspirants filed their nominations to contest the December 7, Presidential Election.
The Commission is happy to note that for the first time in our nation’s history, three (3) women put themselves up for nomination for the position of Presidential Candidate.
This is a testament to the growth of our democratic space.
Now to the reason why we are here.
At the end of a thorough review process, I have the honour to present to you the Presidential Candidates who have qualified to contest the 2020 Presidential Elections.
CANDIDATES CLEARED TO CONTEST IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker, Independent Candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (New Patriotic Party) Christian Kwabena Andrews (Ghana Union Movement) Brigitte Akosua Dzogbenuku (Progressive Peoples Party) John Dramani Mahama (National Democratic Congress Akua Donkor (Ghana Freedom Party) Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings (National Democratic Party) Hassan Ayariga (All People’s Congress) Ivor Kobina Greenstreet (Convention People’s Party) Henry Herbert Lartey (Great Consolidated People’s Party) Percival Kofi Akpaloo (Liberal Party Ghana) David Asibi Ayindenaba Apasera.
(People’s National Congress) CANDIDATES DISQUALIFICATION AND FURTHER REFERRAL TO THE POLICE FOR PROSECUTION ON THE GROUNDS OF FORGERY Kofi Koranteng (Independent Candidate) Mauvrich Kofi Gane (Independent Candidate) Akwasi Addai Odike (United Progressive Party) Kwasi Busumbru (People’s Action Party) Nana Agyenim Boateng (United Front Party) Distinguished citizens, these are your Presidential Candidates for the 2020 Presidential Elections.
As we have emphasized time and time again, the Commission remains committed to conducting free, fair, credible, transparent and peaceful election.
We entreat you our dear citizens to disregard any allegations of rigging and assertions of a flawed electoral process and election by any individual or section of our society.
The transparency of our processes should give confidence to the citizenry that the Electoral Commission cannot rig an election.
For the benefit of those who are not informed about our processes, every aspect of our Electoral process is monitored by the Political Parties.
Right from Registration to the Election Day our Political Parties police and monitor all our processes.
Here, permit me to briefly summarize our processes: Gazetting of registration, Exhibition and Voting Centres Registration - 21 days Exhibition - Provisional Register given to all Political Parties Political Parties provided with final Register Printing of Ballots Ballots statistics Seals Accompanying ballots to Police armories Election Day – Process is open and transparent, conducted under broad day light Ballots are inspected to ensure seals are intact Ballots are inspected to ensure seals are intact Voting is done in open spaces Political Party agents monitor processes and do a count of persons who vote.
Counting is done in the full glare of Political Party Agents, the media and interested public.
Results are then documented on pink sheets and signed by Party agents.
Posted at Polling Stations It is after all this that the pink sheets are then sent to the Commission At the National Collation Centre, we also have Party agents who inspect the signed pink sheets that come in before they are certified by the Electoral Commission.
Can someone tell us at which point of the transparent process, the Electoral Commission can rig the election?
We use this platform to call all Political Parties and stakeholders who have genuine concerns to raise them us in the full glare of the public.
Once we are informed about the weaknesses and gaps in the process outlined, we will take immediate steps to address and close all the gaps and report same to the public in a transparent, open and accountable manner.
Until then we entreat the naysayers to cease their onslaught of trying to discredit a thorough and credible electoral process and a Commission which has been open and transparent in all its dealings.
If for nothing at all, the current Commission has opened up all its processes to the public and removed the cloaks of secrecy that shrouded its activities and operations.
We have laid bare our processes for all to see.
Today the number of persons who registered by District, Region as well as the sex and age is known to any interested citizen.
It is no longer secret Again the challenges encountered during the Exhibition Exercise were discussed openly by the Commission, solved in a timely manner and reported upon promptly.
Constituencies such as Ashaiman which had some gaps in data have all their issues resolved.
Just last week, we opened our doors to enable citizens observe the filing of Nominations by Aspiring Presidential Candidates.
Through our media partners we have brought our processes and operations to every home.
We have been transparent in all our dealings and intend to remain so.
As we head towards the 7 th of December, we urge all of you Distinguished citizens to work with us to strengthen and uphold the integrity of our systems and the Commission as a whole.
Our doors remain open.
We assure our stakeholders that we are receptive to constructive feedback and advice.
Indeed the feedback and advice from well-meaning Ghanaians has helped enrich our work and enabled us to serve you better.
Before we close the curtains to our Let the Citizens know encounter today, we wish all the qualifying Candidates the best of luck in their bid to ascend the high office of the Presidency.
We urge you all to engage in a decent campaign – a campaign based on policies and programs that will lead to the betterment of our society.
As referees, our role is to arrange and organize orderly, fair, transparent, peaceful and credible election.
We assure you that we are working to do just that.
We do not have the power to determine who wins the elections.
It is not in our power or control to determine the outcome of the election.
That power lies with the good people of our dear country.
The citizens and the citizens alone can determine who should lead them – Not the Electoral Commission.
It is the Candidate who is given power to lead this country by the citizens who will be declared President of the Republic of Ghana by the Electoral Commission come the 7 th of December, 2020.
Thankfully the Electoral Commission has institutionalised a fair, open, transparent and accountable process to guide the declaration of the results.
To the aspiring Presidential Candidates who did not make this process, we wish you better luck next time.
Your filing fees of One Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC100,000) will be refunded to you.
To you our Distinguished citizens, we thank you for believing in us and walking this journey with us.
We pledge that we will conduct ourselves in truth and integrity and organize fair, credible, transparent and peaceful election come 7th December, 2020.
We will not let you down.
On your part we charge you to uphold and defend the good name of Ghana and her institutions.
So help us God.
Let Peace Reign.
JEAN MENSA CHAIRPERSON
Following the Exhibition of the Provisional Voters Register, several comments have been made by sections of the society.
While some are borne out of genuine concerns, others are without basis and calculated to tarnish the image of the Electoral Commission.
As a Commission, we deem it our duty to provide the Public with the truth.
On Monday, 26 th August, the Commission received a report from our Northern Regional Directorate that some voters from two Polling Stations in the Tamale South Constituency and one Polling Station in the Sagnerigu Constituency had been transferred to the Pusiga Constituency in the Upper East Region without their knowledge or consent.
The Commission would like to inform the General Public that it has concluded preliminary investigations into the alleged unauthorized voter transfers.
The Commission would like to address the Public on this matter as follows: Regulation 22, Sub-Regulation 1 of Constitutional Instrument (C.I.)
127 provides that, “A registered voter who before an election is resident for not less than twelve months in a constituency other than that in which the registered voter is registered, may apply to the returning officer of the constituency where the registered voter is resident for the name of the registered voter to be entered on the transferred voters list of a polling station in that constituency.”
Per the provision of the law, the Registered Voter must be physically present to request for the transfer of vote to another Polling Station.
The transfer of vote can only be done at the District Offices and requires the presence of the Voter who must be verified using either his/her face or fingerprints.
The voters involved in the Tamale South and Sagnerigu Constituencies incident have denied taking part in a transfer exercise.
What they have alluded to is that their Voter ID Cards were collected by one Haruna Muniru ostensibly for the processing of a loan.
The said Haruna Muniru was in Police custody last week.
He is currently on bail and Police investigations continue.
Preliminary investigations by the Commission have revealed that voter transfers were indeed effected for Thirty-Eight (38) individuals using the credentials of an Electoral Commission Official.
The records of those transfers are captured in the Voter Management System’s (VMS) audit logs.
A look at the verification done during the transfer process shows that photos of the voters from their Voter ID Cards were used for facial verification and to effect the transfers.
Following this incident, the Commission has introduced a ‘liveliness check’ in the verification process, which is a feature designed to ensure that the biometric data being captured is from a live, present human being and not from a spoofed source, such as a photograph, which is what was done in this case.
The ‘liveliness check’ has since been built into the system to prevent any such future occurrence.
The Commission is currently investigating.
While the Commission does not have any evidence to believe that this occurrence is widespread, we have instituted investigations to ascertain if similar incidents occurred elsewhere beyond the reported case in the Tamale South and Sagnerigu Constituencies.
Any such transfers will be reversed and the perpetrators of such acts shall be dealt with according to the law.
Following preliminary investigations, the Commission has suspended the Pusiga District Electoral Officer and has invited him to respond to the Commission’s findings.
Once the investigations are concluded, the Commission will take the appropriate action and inform the Public accordingly.
The Commission would like to assure the Public that it will not shield any of its Officers (both permanent and temporary) found complicit in any electoral malpractices and will always allow such persons to face the full rigours of the law.
We wish to restate that the Provisional Voters Register is not the Final Voters Register.
The central objective of the Exhibition Exercise is to correct any anomalies and issues with the Provisional Register before the Final Register is produced.
This has been the practice since 1992.
The Commission wishes to assure the Public that, after the Exhibition Exercise, the Final Voters Register that will be produced will be robust and credible.
The Provisional Voters Register that was prepared for the just-ended Exhibition Exercise and also provided to all political parties has a Transferred Voters List and an Absent Voters List for each Polling Station.