Friday, February 6, 2009

NIA SUSPENDS MASS REGISTRATION EXERCISE

THE National Identification Authority (NIA) has temporarily suspended its activities till after the transition period.
By its schedule of activities at the start of the mass registration exercise for a national register of Ghanaians and legally resident citizens in the country, as well as identification cards, the exercise started in July 2008 and was expected to end in May 2009.
However, the Head of Public Affairs of the NIA, Ms Bertha Dzeble, said the NIA had put the exercise on hold until the transition period was over, as its activities were tied to the smooth functioning of the government bureaucratic system.
In an interview, she also said the authority would endeavour, under the current transitional period, to rectify delays in the payment of allowances owed some 6,200 people recruited for the mass registration exercise in the Eastern Region since November 2008.
By its schedule for deployment for the mass registration exercise, the NIA began the exercise in July 2008 in the Central Region.
Subsequently, the exercise was undertaken in the Western and Eastern regions, with a break in December for the general election.
However, the protracted nature of the elections that witnessed a presidential run-off on December 28, 2008 and in the Tain Constituency of the Brong Ahafo Region on January 2, 2009 has seen a disruption in the schedule.
The mass registration exercise should have resumed on December 15, 2008 and ended in May 2009 to cover the Volta, Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions.
With the directive from the new government to all ministries, departments and state institutions to hold on and not take any major decisions before the appointment of heads for the ministries and departments, the work of the NIA and its mass registration activities are on hold.
This is particularly so because the mass registration exercise involves the deployment of about 6,200 people, logistics and materials.
Ms Dzeble gave the assurance that as soon as the NIA, which is under the Presidency, was given the go ahead, new schedules would be announced.
She added that grievances on allowances by those who had been recruited for the registration exercise in the Eastern Region would soon be sorted out.
District officers of the NIA compile a list of those recruited who have actually worked for the period.
The list is then sent to the NIA, checked and sent to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning through the Castle treasury system.
It is then sent to the Bank of Ghana (BOG) after the necessary checks and then to the Apex Bank, which credits the various commercial banks in the districts with what is due each person recruited for the exercise.
She pointed out that those checks and processes were necessary but could not be completed in November 2008 because of the general election.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY JANUARY17, 2009, PG 32

PICK THEM BASED ON COMPETENCE, PROF ADEI ADVISES PRESIDENT MILLS

THE immediate past Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has advised President John Atta Mills to be guided by managerial competence and leadership in choosing his ministers.
He said although he partly agreed with President Mills that Ghana had the requisite human resource to fill cabinet positions, the challenge was how to harness the human resources across all divides and deploy them into the key ministries for the proper functioning of governance.
He said President Mills’s success in harnessing that skilled core of people in various professions across the various political and ethnic barriers would define his place in the country’s history.
That, he said, was a simple but difficult political decision.
He explained that the criteria of competence for a minister did not consist in a chain of degrees of higher qualifications, though that was necessary, but consisted of managerial and leadership qualities.
By managerial competence, he said, the person had to be able to organise people, while leadership qualities included the ability to provide vision, strategies and what he termed “people skills,” that is, the ability to impassion people to own the vision and implement it.
All other variables such as political expediency factors, regional balance and party affiliation were important but incidental to his managerial and leadership competence, he said.
“It is a short-sighted strategy to put people who are incompetent into positions because they have contributed to your campaign fund or said ‘choo boi’. There are certain jobs you can preserve for them and always there must be jobs you use for your I.O.U.s”.
He said the financial, agricultural, educational, health and transportation sectors were fundamental to national development, and these were the institutions to attract the best and most competent people.
On how the President would achieve this, Prof. Adei said a good survey would bring out about 250 people who could be oriented into ministerial and other public sector positions and a skills audit will bring out that core group of people for particular positions, starting with their areas of expertise and competencies needed.
He said good leadership would mean prior preparation in selecting competent people or shadow teams with two or three probable candidates for the task ahead, before one assumed the presidency.
“It is not easy to just find them and put them into positions; It is a very difficult challenge. If six months to the election you did not have a team or shadow ministers already built and you are now just responding to the pressures from your party, from the big men who financed you, from the people, from certain families who have now become kingmakers, then it is a great challenge,” he said.
Prof. Adei proposed GIMPA as the institution which could make a difference in helping to fill public sectors with competent people, and where those appointed could orient themselves, learn and become results-oriented in their various political and public sector positions.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY JANUARY 16, 2009, PG 34

CALL FOR POLICY ON LIFELONG LEARNING

Participants in the 60th Annual New Year School have called for a policy on life-long learning to provide a comprehensive, nationally consistent but flexible structure for all levels of education and training in the country.
They said the development of such a policy should be consultative and involve all in the country.
They also proposed the integration of peace and civic education into the curriculum of schools from the basic level through to the tertiary level.
In an 18-point communiqué issued at the end to this year’s New Year School, organised by the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) of the University of Ghana, Legon, participants also called for a collaboration among the Ministry of Education Science and Sports (MOESS), Open University and other relevant educational institutions to develop a comparable certification system for all life-long, adult education and informal learning processes, based on content, teaching and learning with other assessment criteria.
They proposed continuing education relevant to all functionaries of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and community members while as a matter of urgency, functionaries of MMDAs should be adequately resourced and structures strengthened to make the local government system more effective and efficient for life-long learning.
Among recommendations made on the media, participants asked for support for the National Media Commission (NMC) in order to bring to ensure that advertising agencies did gender-sensitive advertisements.
They said regulation had to be put in place to ensure that all media houses, both print and electronic, allocated space and airtime for public education of civic rights and responsibilities on a regular basis as part of their corporate responsibility.
They also proposed a fund for media development for the transformation of the industry.
Other recommendations related to pension reform, health promotion programmes in workplaces, homes, schools and communities, and financing of life-long learning through public private partnerships for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
DAILY GRAPHIC, MONDAY JANUARY 12, 2009, PG 31

ADULT LITERACY BLAMED FOR REJECTED BALLOTS

THE 60th New Year School of the Institute of Adult Education (IAE), University of Ghana, Legon, has opened, with the quest to use life-long learning as the most crucial factor for accelerated national development in the country.
This year’s school is being organised on the theme, “Life-long Learning for Accelerated National Development”.
Despite the fact that the formal opening took place at a time of tense anticipation of the announcement of a President-elect for the country, the enthusiasm characteristic of participants was evident.
In a keynote address to formally open the school, a Professor and South African Research Chair in Development Education of the University of South Africa, Pretoria, Prof Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, proposed a new way by which Africa could become politically and innately free to take on the challenge of leadership in shaping the future of humanity.
She said for Africa to attain its rightful position globally, what mattered most was “the way we think about issues”, and “not so much the hype around a knowledge-based economy or information society and some mad rush into it”.
Prof Hoppers said central to her proposition was the realisation by all that knowledge primarily rested in people, rather than in ICT, databases or services.
She said through the centuries, populations like those found in Africa and elsewhere and their way of life and their environment had been decimated and treated as irrelevant in the normal scheme of things.
“One of the consequences of colonialism and apartheid for the knowledge debate was the fundamental erasure that was effected over the rich knowledge heritage of non-Western People,” she said.
She added that the cultural and intellectual contributions of non-Western knowledge systems had been systematically erased through a strategy of “conquest by naturalisation”, based on assumptions of the uselessness of some seeds and medicinal plants in Africa through World Trade Organisation (WTO) protocols.
To redress all that, Prof Hoppers called for the rethinking of future knowledge, innovation, social justice and human urgency within a new conception of a knowledge-based economy and information society.
For instance, she challenged the notion that literacy was just about reading and writing.
Welcoming participants, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof C. N. B. Tagoe, described the New Year School as a “source of pride to the university, providing the platform for solutions for the country and a barometer for gauging public opinion for the promotion of good governance”.
He said through the New Year School, the university had kept faith with the nation in fulfilling one of its main objectives of knowledge dissemination through extension activities.
He encouraged participants to continually learn, as the current times called for that.
The Director of the IAE, Prof Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, said with the concept of life-long learning gaining prominence, and in line with the UG’s Corporate Strategic Plan, it had been proposed to change the name of the institute to the “Institute of Continuing and Distance Education”.
The change of name, he added, would also raise the profile of the UG’s distance education programmes which were currently benefiting from major grants and loans from the Republic of China to the tune of $8.2 million.
On new academic programmes, he said a bachelor’s degree in Adult Education had been approved to be offered in the first semester of the 2009/2010 academic year, while an MA in HIV/AIDS Management had been proposed for consideration by the university’s Academic Board.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2009

UNPUBLISHED, O3.01.09

THE 60th New Year School of the Institute of Adult Education (IAE), University of Ghana, Legon, has opened, with the quest to use life-long learning as the most crucial factor for accelerated national development in the country.
This year’s school is being organised on the theme, “Life-long Learning for Accelerated National Development”.
Despite the fact that the formal opening took place at a time of tense anticipation of the announcement of a President-elect for the country, the enthusiasm characteristic of participants was evident.
In a keynote address to formally open the school, a Professor and South African Research Chair in Development Education of the University of South Africa, Pretoria, Prof Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, proposed a new way by which Africa could become politically and innately free to take on the challenge of leadership in shaping the future of humanity.
She said for Africa to attain its rightful position globally, what mattered most was “the way we think about issues”, and “not so much the hype around a knowledge-based economy or information society and some mad rush into it”.
Prof Hoppers said central to her proposition was the realisation by all that knowledge primarily rested in people, rather than in ICT, databases or services.
She said through the centuries, populations like those found in Africa and elsewhere and their way of life and their environment had been decimated and treated as irrelevant in the normal scheme of things.
“One of the consequences of colonialism and apartheid for the knowledge debate was the fundamental erasure that was effected over the rich knowledge heritage of non-Western People,” she said.
She added that the cultural and intellectual contributions of non-Western knowledge systems had been systematically erased through a strategy of “conquest by naturalisation”, based on assumptions of the uselessness of some seeds and medicinal plants in Africa through World Trade Organisation (WTO) protocols.
To redress all that, Prof Hoppers called for the rethinking of future knowledge, innovation, social justice and human urgency within a new conception of a knowledge-based economy and information society.
For instance, she challenged the notion that literacy was just about reading and writing.
Welcoming participants, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof C. N. B. Tagoe, described the New Year School as a “source of pride to the university, providing the platform for solutions for the country and a barometer for gauging public opinion for the promotion of good governance”.
He said through the New Year School, the university had kept faith with the nation in fulfilling one of its main objectives of knowledge dissemination through extension activities.
He encouraged participants to continually learn, as the current times called for that.
The Director of the IAE, Prof Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, said with the concept of life-long learning gaining prominence, and in line with the UG’s Corporate Strategic Plan, it had been proposed to change the name of the institute to the “Institute of Continuing and Distance Education”.
The change of name, he added, would also raise the profile of the UG’s distance education programmes which were currently benefiting from major grants and loans from the Republic of China to the tune of $8.2 million.
On new academic programmes, he said a bachelor’s degree in Adult Education had been approved to be offered in the first semester of the 2009/2010 academic year, while an MA in HIV/AIDS Management had been proposed for consideration by the university’s Academic Board.

ADULT EDUCATION MUST PROVIDE RELEVANT SKILLS

ADULT education must provide men and women with the relevant skills to improve their livelihoods, a former Director of the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) of the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof Miranda Greenstreet, has stated.
She said adult education could no longer be divorced from poverty reduction, adding, “In the Ghanaian context, it seems generally accepted that the mission of the Institute is to carry the University’s presence, its standards, and its discipline from Legon into the market places, town and villages all over the country”.
There is, therefore, the need for the IAE to embrace change and the innovations in the field, as well as become better suited to a global situation in which the rapid rate of change brought with it new and more accessible knowledge.
In a lecture delivered at the 60th Annual New Year School of the IAE, Prof Greenstreet proposed, among other things, the re-examination of courses provided by the institute, the type of students produced and the programmes delivered to the public.
Prof Greenstreet observed that every discipline was developed and promoted by those who taught the subject, thus becoming the responsibility of the lecturers in the field to develop the discipline by their awareness of global and national trends with respect to the discipline.
“This calls for training and re-training of adult education professionals,” she added.
Tracing the beginnings of adult education, nationally and internationally, she reiterated the position of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on adult education as a field with the potential of creating an “informed and tolerant citizenry, economic and social development, the promotion of literacy, the alleviation of poverty and the preservation of the environment”.
She described the formative years of adult education internationally and particularly in Ghana, as well as its period of stability under Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s tenure as Prime Minister that “witnessed massive infrastructure development,” and the provision of logistics on a “scale unmatched by any government ever since”.
She said the overthrow of Dr Nkrumah resulted in changes that saw the GCE Ordinary and Advanced Level courses as constituting the main programmes of the institute, and the introduction of a Diploma course in adult education in the early 1970s.
The former Director of the IAE said the 1980s and the 1990s saw the diversification of non-formal programmes offered by the institute on various campuses with the community education programmes being organised by the Accra and the Sekondi/Takoradi Workers Colleges and the Population and Environment Programme in the Upper East Region.
There was also the introduction of certificate courses, Master of Arts/Master of Philosophy and PhD programmes.
“This period also witnessed the establishment and strengthening of new partnerships with local and international partners and adult education networks,” she added.
On programmes to be offered, she called for the inclusion of continuous professional development in the context of adult learning and education and in the wider context of life-long learning.
Prof Greenstreet noted that perceiving adult education as a life-long beneficial venture, was fundamental to bringing about a more democratic system, as well as social institutions in which the principles and ideals of social inclusiveness, justice and equity were present, practised and promoted and where the economy was strong, adaptable ad competitive, among other benefits.
She said it had the potential and responsibility of providing the missing link that had eluded Ghanaians and advocated funding, attitudinal change in the national body politic, the development of a life-long learning policy framework for the country, the reintroduction of industrial training programmes and an expanded provision of non-formal education as some of the measures to institute.
DAILY GRAPHIC, WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7, 2009, PG 17

INTEGRATED EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK ADVOCATED.

TWO experts in education have advocated a comprehensive and integrated education and curriculum framework for the country that will guide the entire teaching and learning processes of Ghanaians.
The Dean of the School of Creative Arts of the University of Education, Winneba, Mr James Flolu, and a Senior Education Specialist, World Bank Country Office, Accra, Ms Eunice Dapaah, emphasised the need particularly for life-long learning processes to be recognised, made certifiable and funded.
They defined life-long processes as education designed to last through a person’s lifetime,
In papers presented at the 60th New Year School organised by the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) of the University of Ghana (UG), Legon, on the topic, “Life-long learning and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”, the two underscored the fact that education was key in achieving the goals.
Mr Flolu, in his paper, proposed, among other things, a national policy on life-long learning that would include the vision, principles, areas of learning, certification and financing.
He said the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education, the IAE, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), as well as teacher education institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), had to collaborate to re-define their roles and ensure proper co-ordination.
Mr Flolu said in recognising and using life-long learning in attaining the MDGs, a three-dimensional educational structure was needed for guidance and listed compulsory basic and general education, professional and career development education and education for a fulfilling life and living.
Under compulsory basic and general education, he stressed the need to focus on the development of the individual, which involved intellectual and psychological development, not merely the memorisation of facts.
In her presentation, Ms Dapaah expressed the view that life-long education was the future of learning.
Concentrating on the MDGs on education and gender equality, that is, Goal 2 and Goal 3, she indicated that at the current rate of growth the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) and completion rates might be achieved in the next seven years if targeted interventions were employed to address regional and district disparities.
The Northern Region had the lowest NER in 2006 of 52.4 per cent, which increased to 67.5 per cent in 2007, she said, adding that the region had a longer way to go than the other regions.
Primary Gender Parity stagnated, improved and then seemed to stagnate again between 2007 and 2008, she said.
According to her, that target should have been achieved by 2005 for the primary level. However, it currently stood at 0.92.
Ms Dapaah argued that with education as the “common denominator” for all the other MDGs, there was the need for a change in the thinking about life-long learning in the country.
She said although formal learning in Ghana had been funded principally by the government and reinforced by the 1992 Constitution, it was also known that most learning over one’s lifetime did not occur during formal education or training.
Ms Dapaah said while the country continued to forge forward on the formal education front, it also had to create an environment for lif-elong and continuing education.
“Life-long education is not just an alternative but critical to creating the literate society required for our nation’s development,” she stated.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY JANUARY 9, 2009 PG 17

CIVIC EDUCATION MUST START AT KINDERGARTEN

THE inculcation of core values that unite Ghanaians must begin immediately from the kindergarten level through all levels of education.
This will help to foster togetherness and a common purpose among the people in the country, a Renowned Educationist, Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, has stated.
He said the Report of the President’s Committee on the Review of Education Reforms in Ghana (2002) highlighted a system of education that sought to make all Ghanaians united even in their differences.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Prof. Anamuah-Mensah, who was also the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on the Review of Education Reforms in Ghana, agreed with former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s suggestion that the educational system should be used to unite Ghanaians.
Addressing Parliament in his last State of the Nation Address on January 6, 2009, former President Kufuor said, “Mr Speaker, further to eliminate factionalism within society, part of the school curriculum should be devoted to studying and strengthening the factors that unite us so that our politics will not be driven by ethnicity, but rather merit.”
Prof. Anamuah-Mensah said the committee had taken cognisance of this and highlighted this issue in its report.
What was now needed was the full implementation of recommendations that would foster a united country by the Curriculum and Research Development Division of the Ministry of Education Science and Sports (MOESS).
He was of the view that the tension, divisions and acrimony that characterised the election campaigns of the past year would not be repeated with an educational system that built up individuals to appreciate each other’s differences while remaining united.
“If we all remain united we can achieve this, starting with kids from the kindergarten. If we do not, they will imitate us and we will not be able to bridge the breaches we started. We must start and introduce the core values into our children,” he said.
In her view, another member of the Presidential Committee on the Review of Education Reforms, Dr Mrs Sylvia Boye, said the system of education, where some children from all over the country lived together in a boarding system in the past, helped to foster unity.
Children were then able to learn about the differences in ethnic, tribal and religious backgrounds, while living and learning together.
She said the boarding system currently did not achieve this as children were from the same region in which the schools were situated.
Dr Boye noted that a properly developed curriculum, under which core values of respect for each other’s differences and the essence of unity were inculcated in all, would help the country to maintain its cohesion.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY JANUARY 9, 2009

LET'S DO AWAY WITH 'WINNER TAKES ALL' SYSTEM

Some civil society organisations and individuals have called for the removal of an aspect of the country’s political system which they describe as “first past the post” or “winner takes all”.
They reiterated the urgency for the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to introduce specific legal and administrative measures that would change the system.
The political system practised in the country, they said, resulted in the party which emerged winner in an election having all the say in resource mobilisation and deployment, as well as all other developmental initiatives.
That, they said, resulted in partisanship, alienation of some Ghanaians and, in some cases, as was witnessed in the last elections, tension and rancour in the political environment.
In separate interviews, a media consultant and advocate for electoral reform, Mr Kwesi Gyan-Apenteng; the Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, and the Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP), Mr Emmanuel Bombande, offered a diversity of opinions on how the political system of the country could be improved.
Mr Gyan-Apenteng said although the Constitution did not oblige any government to do so, the inclusion of other skilled and experienced Ghanaians who might not be members of the governing party in the government was the morally and politically correct thing to do.
That was particularly so when the results of the elections showed that Ghanaians had not given a massive and clear win to the NDC or a total rejection of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), he added.
He further proposed a deliberate effort by the government to unite the country and make sure “Ghana keeps and pulls together” through thick and thin, especially after the presidential run-off on December 28, 2008 and the presidential run-off in the Tain Constituency on January 3, 2009 that saw the country almost at the brink of violence.
He said the new government had the opportunity and responsibility to ensure a united country.
Mr Gyan-Apenteng’s final proposal was for an electoral reform that would ensure that Ghanaians were properly and justifiably represented.
He suggested a system of representation that was proportional and the subsequent election of the President by the MPs elected through that means for a broader and better representation of the people.
Dr Akwetey, for his part, said changing the political character of the country to foster better developmental outcomes was needed but said suggestions should be made after the new government had had a firm grasp of its work.
He was also of the view that the new government would have its own plans on how to achieve the challenge of a better political character and rather preferred to monitor how it would go about it for suggestions to be given to make its efforts better and make it accountable.
Dr Akwetey lauded the comments made so far by the new government on its willingness to consult with others who did not belong to the NDC to foster the unity of the country.
However, while its comments were right and conciliatory, it was the practice of its intention that would bring about the inclusive political system and that called for all to monitor to find out how these intentions would be implemented, he noted.
Mr Bombande said an agenda for national reconciliation to deal with the country’s multi-ethnic background should be made the bedrock of actions by the new government, saying that the results of that would be the human resource store of all Ghanaians for development.
His proposals were, among others, the election of district chief executives (DCEs) to complete the decentralisation process and ensuring that diverse groups of Ghanaians contributed to the governance of the country, both at the local and national levels.
On the election of DCEs, he said the patronage system of governance, part of the “winner-takes-all” political system, would be no more.
DAILY GRAPHIC, WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7, 2009, PG 23

EC SECURES FIRST TRANCHE OF GH¢5m

THE Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) has released an initial tranche of GH¢5 million to the Electoral Commission (EC) for the printing of ballot papers and other expenses for the December 28 presidential run-off.
The Director of Budget at MOFEP, Mr Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, who made this known, said the EC’s proposal for the run-off was submitted last week with the request for the immediate release of part of the amount for the acquisition of indelible ink, the printing of ballot papers and other operational costs.
In all, about GH¢11.5 million had been set aside for the exercise.
The second tranche of about GH¢6.5 million would be used for the payment of allowances of election staff during the run-off, and that was also ready and would be released when the EC was set, Mr Adjei-Mensah added.
The Director of Finance at the EC, Mr Isaac Kwame Boateng, when contacted, confirmed the release and said the EC was in the process of clearing the money for use.
Meanwhile, contract has been awarded for the supply of logistics that would be needed by the EC for the exercise.
Mr Boateng said despite the fact that the time was short, arrangements had been made with suppliers to fast-track the supply of materials.
The challenge, however, was the fact that the December 28 re-run was at a time of congestion due to backlog of air and port freight, resulting in high costs.
He gave the assurance that the EC could always have the resources it needed for a successful election.
17.12.08
DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY DECEMBER 18, 2008 PG 2

IGNORE RESULTS FROM UNAUTHORISED GROUPS

THE Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has urged the general public to ignore any person or group that purports to announce the final results of the 2008 presidential election.
"The EC wishes to remind all Ghanaians that it is the only body in the country authorised by law to conduct public elections and declare their results," a statement signed by Dr Afari-Gyan and issued in Accra on Tuesday stated.
It said the EC would announce the time and place for the declaration of the 2008 presidential results when it was ready to do so.
Meanwhile, the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has asked the EC to comply with its 72-hour period for announcing the results of the presidential election, reports Caroline Boateng.
It said from reports of vote counting from a random sample of some 1,070 polling stations, it was in the position to project the likely outcome of the presidential race and would share those observations if the EC, after 72 hours, did not declare the results or give clear reasons why the results could not be given.
This was made known in a preliminary observation by CODEO on the conduct of the elections.
A member of the advisory board of CODEO, Rev Dr Fred Deegbe, when contacted and asked whether its action would not raise tension in the country, said CODEO would collaborate as much as possible with the EC.
However, it would share its observations on the presidential results if the EC was not forthcoming by its stipulated period of declaring the results, he added.
He said that action was to preserve the integrity and credibility of CODEO, as members did not want to be seen as conniving with anyone in not ensuring that the right things were done.
The observations, contained in a statement jointly signed by Prof Miranda Greenstreet and Mr Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe, co-chairpersons of CODEO, however, said the 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections had been conducted in accordance with the electoral laws of Ghana and met international standards.
“The pre-election environment was relatively transparent, even and competitive, in spite of several challenges recorded,” said.
It said polling had been conducted in a credible, open and peaceful manner, while Ghanaians responded to the elections in “an enthusiastic and responsible way that demonstrated their commitment to work towards the sustenance of our democratic governance”.
Generally, CODEO said, the opening of polls and the setting up of polling stations had encountered few problems, with a third of the polling stations not setting up on time and some having some missing election materials during set up.
The voting process, it said, had been orderly and officials of the EC, to a large extent, enforced voting rules and regulations.
It said although no major problems were encountered, CODEO observers, however, reported seven cases of the suspension of voting in some polling stations in the Western, Eastern and Northern regions.
For instance, in the Akwatia Constituency, voting was suspended due to a clash between supporters of the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party, resulting in the snatching of seven ballot boxes.
It said checks at the EC indicated that six of the boxes had been retrieved.
CODEO said its observers recorded 40 cases of missing electoral materials as of the time of set-up, six cases of disorder at poling stations, five cases of the violation of voting procedure, three cases of electoral officials turning away eligible voters and three cases of ineligible cases being allowed to vote.
It said in the vast majority of polling stations, that is, 92 per cent, political party agents did not challenge the results, while 95 per cent of the political party agents signed the declared results at the polling stations.
09.12.08
DAILY GRAPHIC, WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 10, 2008

'50 PER CENT PLUS ONE IS MISREPRESENTATION

THE Omanhene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, Daasebre Oti Boateng, has said it is a misrepresentation to say that the person to be elected president must have “50 per cent plus one” of the votes cast.
He said the statement “50 per cent plus one” was not correct and also not found anywhere in the Constitution.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Daasebre Oti Boateng was unhappy that people who were expected to know better were going about repeating the phrase.
He said “50 per cent plus one” was impossible and was what could be termed “non-additive entities”.
Quoting from Article 63 Clause Three of the Constitution, he emphasised the clarity of the Constitution on the basis for the election of the president.
“A person shall not be elected as President of Ghana unless at the presidential election the number of votes cast in his favour is more than 50 per cent of the total number of valid votes cast at the election,” he quoted.
“The operative words here are ‘More than 50 per cent of the total number of valid votes cast’,” he said.
“In stating “more than 50 per cent”, the Constitution had taken into account all the votes and transmuted them into percentages. Therefore, there is no single number left anymore.
“You cannot, therefore, render what the Constitution says in percentages and numbers at the same time; that is incorrect. It is like trying to add water and petrol. Once you are in the realm of percentages, you cannot also be talking about numbers. It is statistically and mathematically incorrect and a false basis on which to base the election of the president,” he added.
09.12.08
DAILY GRAPHIC, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008, PG 3