The Electoral Commission (EC) says its meeting at the City Escape Hotel in Accra is a normal meeting of the commission with its directors.
“It is an in-house meeting of directors which we hold three times in a year as part of our operations,” it said.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, a Deputy Chairperson of the EC in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Bossman Asare, explained that the meeting could have taken place at the EC’s headquarters.
He said the EC chose to relocate the meeting to meet the social distancing directives currently in force.
Dr Asare said just as other institutions were working in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EC “is also working in preparation for the 2020 elections.”
He said the commission was not speaking to the issue of some members of the NDC coming to the hotel.
Police intervention
The timely intervention of the Accra Regional Police averted an unpleasant scene at the Airport branch of the City Escape Hotel last Saturday where some members of the NDC had assembled to disrupt a meeting of the Electoral EC.
Some national executive of the NDC and supporters of the party besieged the Airport branch of the hotel upon hearing that the EC had relocated the workshop to that venue.
It, however, turned out to be a meeting of the directors of the EC.
But the Accra Regional Police Operations Director, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Mr Kwesi Ofori, led a team of personnel to storm the hotel to avert any untoward incident.
The police later provided a safe passage for the officials of the EC who were at the lobby of the hotel.
Police
Speaking to journalists at the scene, Mr Ofori advised the NDC to resort to due process instead of taking the law into their own hands.
He said the NDC officials had reported the matter to the Airport Police, hence the need for the police to conduct their investigations and deal with the matter.
Apart from 20 officials of the EC that were seen at the lobby of the hotel, he said the police did not see any formal meeting going on.
Mr Ofori said he had asked the EC officials to go to the Airport Police to write a statement in response to the complaint filed against the EC.
NDC Responds
A Deputy General Secretary of NDC, Mr Peter Boamah Otokunor, accused the EC of deliberately flouting a court injunction barring it from holding a workshop to train its officers.
The workshop, he said, was contrary to a ban placed on all public gatherings, including conferences, workshops, funerals, festivals, political rallies, sporting events and religious activities by the President in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Otokunor said the NDC would meet on Monday, April 27, 2020, to consider options available to it, including citing the EC for contempt.
The plaintiff in the case, Mr Sam George, who also arrived at the scene, told journalists that the actions of the EC and the hotel management were a clear violation of the President’s order on the holding of mass gathering.
Source: Daily Graphic
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WE HAVE LAWS IN GHANA AND THE NDC RASCALS MUST BE ARRESTED. THE EC OR THE POLICE WHO INTERVENED TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION MUST MAKE A CASE AGAINST THE RASCALS FOR INTERRUPTING THE EC MEETINGS. WHATEVER THE CLAIM OF NDC RASCALS, WHICH IS REFUTED TO BE FALSE, THEY HAD NO RIGHT TO BE NUISANCE AND DESTRUCTIVE TO THE ACTIVITIES OF ANY INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTION IN THE COUNTRY. THE NDC RASCALS HAD NO RIGHT TO OBSTRUCT THE EC MEETING. THIS IS TYPICAL REHEARSAL OF NDC RASCALS AGENDA TO FRUSTRATE THE PROGRAMS OF EC. WE SHOULD STOP THE NNONSENSEEEE IMMEDIATELY BEFORE IT GETS OUT OF HANDS. IT IS THIS SAME SAM GEORGE WHO LED THE TUGS TO AYAWASO BY ELECTION TO CAUSE THE UGLYYY INCIDENCE OF THAT ELECTION. HIS ATTACK ON EC THIS TIME MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AND DEAL WITH HIM AND HIS TUGS ACCORDING TO THE LAW.
WE HAVE LAWS IN GHANA AND THE NDC RASCALS MUST BE ARRESTED. THE EC OR THE POLICE WHO INTERVENED TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION MUST MAKE A CASE AGAINST THE RASCALS FOR INTERRUPTING THE EC MEETINGS. WHATEVER THE CLAIM OF NDC RASCALS, WHICH IS REFUTED TO BE FALSE, THEY HAD NO RIGHT TO BE NUISANCE AND DESTRUCTIVE TO THE ACTIVITIES OF ANY INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTION IN THE COUNTRY. THE NDC RASCALS HAD NO RIGHT TO OBSTRUCT THE EC MEETING. THIS IS TYPICAL REHEARSAL OF NDC RASCALS AGENDA TO FRUSTRATE THE PROGRAMS OF EC. WE SHOULD STOP THE NNONSENSEEEE IMMEDIATELY BEFORE IT GETS OUT OF HANDS. IT IS THIS SAME SAM GEORGE WHO LED THE TUGS TO AYAWASO BY ELECTION TO CAUSE THE THAT ***barred word*** INCIDENCE OF THAT ELECTION. HIS ATTACK ON EC THIS TIME MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AND DEAL WITH HIM AND HIS TUGS ACCORDING TO THE LAW.
The NDC defied the social distance directive and amassed it's members and talking about what? is Sam George a police to arrest instead reporting the EC to the police if they violated the law. Sam George deserves more beatings paaa! The lawlessness in the NDC is too much.
These NDC i d i o t s think this country belongs to then and that they should be ruling all the time. Just to let them know that their time is over and there is a new sheriff in town and he will be in town for years to come. NDC WILL NOT RULE GHANA AGAIN PERIOD.
I knew they will come up with such a flimsy excuse. God is watching
You have disobeyed the courts ruling simple, just go and explain your disobedience to the court of our land period.You shameful woman
what is this obsession with EC activities. is there something that they did in their time that they THINK someone else would do? i just do not get it
The Police should up their game. They should have arrested all of them since they also flouted the social distance protocol.
What NDC is doing to the EC portends trouble in the future.Ghana should be on the alert and prepare to meet them squarely.