A video clip of Mrs. Jean Mensah, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, is doing the rounds on social media (the internet) and it is believed the video’s authenticity is not in doubt because she was briefing the Press.
Mrs. Mensah in the video, was pouring out her heart, about the current situation the Commission finds itself in, the frustrations with the system, the disappointments with members of staff, and the gross ignorance of some management staff, expected to know their core responsibility but have no know idea what they are doing at the Commission.
If what the EC Boss was saying is true, then nobody should doubt the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo, and his ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) when they say they will win the 2024 elections, especially if they have the EC Boss in their camp.
If we are to believe Mrs. Jean Mensah, it means since the beginning of the 4th Republic, all elections in Ghana have been a sham and the long queues of Ghanaian voters were for nothing since they never determined who is elected at the end of the day.
The Afari Gyan EC, Charlotte Osei’s EC, including Jean Mensah, all as EC Bosses, were controlled from outside the country.
Mrs. Jean Mensah said, as independent as the EC is in the eyes of the Ghanaians, the Commission does not have the right or control over its Administrative passwords – the Commission has never had it until she and her co-commissioners came in, their systems, the Biometric Data and everything at the Commission is controlled by external (Foreign) vendors.
She said none of her staff has been trained, the Commission’s discussions with these external (foreign) vendors, are to the effect that the Commission’s staff are not trainable and so everything is run by these external (Foreign) vendors, who control the EC’s systems.
The EC Boss stated emphatically that the foreign vendors have unlimited access, remotely and physically to the Commission’s systems and cited the example of the recent referendum, in which the Commission paid $1.7 million to these external vendors, just to clean about 13,000 verification devices ahead of the referendum. Something she was expecting the Commission’s IT Department to be able to handle but the Director in charge does not know what to do.
She said the verification involved wiping these devices, testing them, and making sure they are working, they are parked into boxes and stored away in the data center, which is full of empty boxes, very filthy and full of wires and the Commission is paying $4 million a year to maintain that room and it is been going on since 2011.
Giving a catalogue of problems afflicting the Commission, Mrs. Jean Mensah said, there are times she was expecting the Commission’s IT Director to be able to fix some of these issues but the Director had categorically stated he has no idea what to do.
She said, there was an instance when the Commission had offered $200,000 to the IT Director and his team to solve a problem, but they told her nobody had taught them how it’s done and therefore cannot do it.
“This is the system we have run to date”, the EC Boss said, “the Commission has no clue, it does not control the Data, the administrative rights are with the external (foreign) vendors and they have indicated the Commission never wanted the Password”.
On the way forward, Mrs. Jean Mensah said, what the Commission is doing now is to build a core, to bring on board new staff and the Commission has started recruiting.
She said the Commission realizes the amount it pays, determines the quality of personnel it can recruit and so has paid $4 million for consultants to bring on board in the long term as Consultants to help the Commission build and train its staff.
This is the system in which the Electoral Commission finds itself.
Source – Jojo Bruce-Quanssah
jojobrucequansah@gmail .com
info@ghananewsnow.co.uk
