The Electoral Commission says it is battle-ready for this year’s elections as it begins procurement of materials needed for smooth conduct of the polls.
The commission has secured about 98 per cent of offshore items to be deployed, especially, at polling stations. Some of the materials have already been dispatched to the regions.
EC Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, says electoral body has been busy preparing the Biometric Verification Machines by keying in the Voter’s Register.
Political parties are expected to pick their copies of the electoral roll next week, as online recruitment of officers goes on, expected to be followed soon with training.
In what appears to be a tall-list of items already procured, Mrs. Charlotte Osei says the EC is well positioned to conduct free, fair, transparent and all-inclusive polls.
“Almost everything is ready for the elections. We are doing recruitments; as soon as we finish recruitment, the training will start. All the offshore items we need for the elections 98, 99 % are in Ghana. We have taken delivery of indelible ink, the ballot boxes, the voting screens; the demarcation tapes, the identity jackets for election officials, live jackets for people who are working on river-line areas. Our pick-ups are ready and have been distributed,” she revealed
According to Mrs. Charlotte Osei, barring any hitches, the EC will start printing of parliamentary ballot papers by Friday.
“There are about 97 items we need to send to every polling station, and about 95 of those items are ready. Now we are preparing the BVDs [Biometric Verification Machines]; we are loading the registers onto the BVDs. The register is ready. Once we load it onto the BVDs, then they would go out to the regions.
We have started today [Wednesday], the process of printing for the parliamentary ballot. We’ve done the balloting for positions so the parties know where they would appear on the ballots and we will start the printing the parliamentary ballots probably by tomorrow or the day after because we need to inform the party agents and the security agencies to be there,” she explained.
Mrs. Charlotte Osei addressed the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs on Wednesday in Kumasi.
She says the printing of presidential ballots would be outstanding until determination of suits brought against the EC by some disqualified presidential aspirants.