A Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC), Dr Bossman Eric Asare, has assured that the election-management body is ready to conduct the December 17 referendum.
According to him, the Commission is on track with plans to run the exercise.
“I will say that come December 17, the district level elections, the assembly members elections, unit committee elections and the referendum to determine whether political parties should be allowed to sponsor candidates for local government elections, everything is on course.”
Dr Asare gave this assurance on Monday, November 18 in an interview on Sunrise on 3FM.
He said from the perspective of the Commission, “we are much ahead of schedule”.
He said ballots are expected to be printed two weeks before the exercise, for instance.
Publicity on the referendum was said to be low until there was a divided stance for some major stakeholders on the outcome.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) asked all its members to vote ‘No’ against the government’s ‘Yes’.
Dr Bossman said that is good for democracy “but I think the proponents of this referendum that is government still have enough time to do a lot of public education”.
He advocated wider consultation on the way to go despite calling for the introduction of politics to strengthen accountability at the local level of governance.
“We don’t want to do something that will at the end of the day be an albatross and becomes a problem for us.”
By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana