The Electoral Commission has explained its resolution to relocate collation of some constituency results to the National Police Training School in Tesano, Accra.
According to the commission, the decision was taken to ensure its staff were safe as well as maintain the electoral process to avoid further disruptions.
“In a number of instances, our staff have been threatened with death and forced to declare outcomes without adhering to the processes governing collation. It is instructive to note that the EC has held discussions with the Ghana Police Service and had requested protection in areas where collation was supposed to have continued but some of our staff were still threatened’’.
She added that, ‘’In order to protect the staff as well as its electoral process, following engagement with the police, it was agreed that the Tesano Police Depot would be used as the collating centre for all outstanding collations’’.
Speaking to the media at a brief presser earlier this afternoon, the Electoral Commissioner, Jean Mensa mentioned that, all political parties were duly informed about the changes to relocate the collation of the outstanding constituencies to the Police Depot at Tesano and were asked to nominate two agents per constituency for the collation.
‘’ The political parties were duly informed to nominate two agents per constituency to observe the collation’’.
Madam Mensa further mentioned that, due to police intelligence the collation was discontinued upon police advice.
“Unfortunately the collation did not take place in spite of our team’s presence at the Tesano Police Depot, this was because the Ghana Police Service informed the commission that their intelligence report showed that party supporters were planning to besiege the police depot and advised the process be discontinued’’.