Support EC deliver credible, transparent elections – GPCC urges stakeholders

On March 16, 2024, 1:30 AM

The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has called on key stakeholders to support the Electoral Commission (EC) to deliver on its mandate of providing credible and transparent elections.

The council said while the EC had the core mandate of organizing free and fair elections in the country, stakeholders such as political parties, faith-based organizations, security agencies, the media, civil society organizations (CSOs), and traditional authorities needed to support the commission to deepen the integrity of the electoral process.

According to the Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, it was when all stakeholders worked together that the outcome of the upcoming elections would be credible and acceptable.

“The GPCC wants to give the assurance that we will do our part to support the work of the EC because Ghana is our country; we do not have any country and in an election year, we all have to come on board and ensure that Ghana wins,” he said.

Apostle Nyamekye stated this in an interview with journalists after the GPCC held a meeting with the EC in Accra yesterday.

The meeting with the EC was the first of a series of engagements the commission had lined up with stakeholders ahead of the December 7 elections.

The delegation from the EC was led by the Chairperson, Jean Mensa and included top officials of the commission.

Effective communication

While rallying the support of other stakeholders for the EC, Apostle Nyamekye urged the commission to be forthcoming with its communication to ensure that other persons did not distort information.

“We think that the EC should always go ahead of the politicians in terms of communication.

When they have Interparty Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting, the EC should put out information to the public so that people know what exactly happened instead of them having to be reacting to what politicians are saying,” he said.

He stressed that the situation whereby the EC had to be doing catch-up in terms of communicating its programmes and activities made it difficult for people to appreciate the issues.

The clergyman underscored the need for political parties to put the country first in their political campaign activities.

“The strategies of political parties should not override the principles of our democracy; it should rather be to deepen our peace and development,” he said.

EC’s commitment

For her part, the EC chairperson, Mrs Mensa said the commission would take innovative steps to effectively communicate its policies and programmes to the public ahead of the elections.

“Communication is an area that we have not done too well in and we intend to strengthen it going forward.

In 2020, we set up the ‘Let the Citizens’ Know platform and it helped us a lot; so we intend to strengthen it and be able to provide relevant and timely information because that will help to prevent suspicions that characterise the work we do,” she said.

Filing fees

In its press release after the recent IPAC meeting, the EC indicated that it had decided to maintain the filing fees for the 2020 parliamentary and presidential elections for this year’s general elections.

Mrs Mensa said the decision to maintain the presidential and parliamentary filing fees at GH₵100,000 and GH₵10,000 respectively was part of strategies to ensure that no candidate or party was denied the opportunity to contest the election because of financial constraints.

“We are a listening commission and we have heard that higher fees could prevent people from filing, so we decided to maintain it at the 2020 figure,” she said.