Hired guarantors invade registration centres – Christian group alerts EC
The Alliance for Christian Advocacy Africa (ACAA) is raising red flags over contract and or hired guarantors invading voter registrations centres at the ongoing registration exercise across the country.
The organisation noted that those guarantors visited registration centres on a daily basis, serving the purpose of guaranteeing other registrants who might not have the required documents for the exercise.
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Monitoring
The Chief Executive Officer of the ACAA, Rev. Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, was sharing a preliminary report by the organisation on the ongoing voter registration exercise with the Daily Graphic over the weekend in Accra.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has granted accreditation to the Alliance for Christian Advocacy Africa to monitor the ongoing voters registration exercise and submit a comprehensive report at the end of the exercise.
A total of 100 pastors from the organisation from various denominations have so far visited 520 polling stations in 75 constituencies in six regions as of July 19, 2020 and have released a preliminary report on their observation.
The regions are the Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Bono, Ashanti and Northern regions.
Dr Opuni-Frimpong said even though the group could not ascertain the basis or details of such contracts, the organisation noted that the trend was gradually gaining grounds.
Contract guarantors
“Some of the registrants come with the Ghana Cards and others with their passports, however, those without the required documents come with guarantors.
“But it seems some registrants look for guarantors at the polling stations and that is producing guarantor contractors.
“There are people at the registration centres who, when people get there without the required documents, they just go with them, I don’t know the details of the contract whether they pay them when they need them. We get the impression they are hired guarantors,” Dr Opuni-Frimpong stated.
He, therefore, called on the EC to immediately deal with “this growing trend of contract or hired guarantor.”
Rev. Dr Opuni-Frimpong, who is also a member of the EC’s Eminent Advisory Committee, expressed concern about the growing rate of violence being perpetrated by political actors in the registration exercise.
Political hooliganism
He called for a public prosecution of such individuals, challenging the law enforcement agencies, particularly the police service, to identify and thoroughly investigate such cases without fear or favour.
Dr Opuni-Frimpong noted that there was a seeming lost of trust and confidence in the police service for their commitment to deal with criminal issues, particularly when it involved politicians of a ruling party.
“Political violence and political hooliganism do not attract prosecution because the prosecution history in this country does not suggest that when it comes to political violence, they are prosecuted and so, we need to sustain the public confidence that criminal act is a criminal act, whether it is political or whatever.
“So, the security agencies need to up their game because people are losing that public confidence when it comes to political violence and hooliganism,” Dr Opuni-Frimpong urged the security agencies.