Kenya Exposes Ghana ...

Figures from the Kenyan Electoral Commission have badly exposed the biometric voter register used by Ghana, which was compiled by the Electoral Commission, for the 2012 general elections as bogus, bloated and not credible. From a population of 43,013,341 people, 14,337,399 Kenyan voters, representing 33% of the population, yesterday went to the polls to elect a new leader. This is opposed to Ghana�s case where out of a population of some 24.6 million, 14,031,681, representing 57% of Ghana�s population, were registered voters. The comparison and vast difference between Ghana and Kenya�s voter register has been described by analysts as evidence of the fact that Ghana�s voter list, which employed the use of biometric technology, was deliberately bloated. Investigations conducted by the New Statesman have shown that STL Ghana, the company that compiled the register for the EC, together with the Head of IT at the Electoral Commission, Mr Hubert Akumiah, had a deliberate criminal strategy to bloat the voter register. According to New Statesman findings, in certain polling stations in some selected areas in the country, particularly in strongholds of the National Democratic Congress, the voters register was slightly bloated by not more than 5% during the registration exercise. The New Statesman can confirm that the voter register strangely shot up during the cleaning up exercise, conducted by the Electoral Commission. Sources at the EC tell the New Statesman, as part of its investigations, that they are willing to testify if their security can be guaranteed �because the voter register was deliberately bloated by some 1 million. In the Volta Region alone, the bloating was by as much as 235,000 votes.� Buttressing the point of voter bloating in the Volta Region is the case of Ketu South, which strangely enough, is the most populous constituency in Ghana with a voter population of 126,659, with some 90,707 of these voters casting their vote in the 2012 election. According to our EC sources, during the adjudication exercise, where the details of voters who registered were crosschecked to remove multiple biometric data, instructions were given to those in charge of certain listed constituencies "do not disturb" anything they found and �don't clean up.� It is recalled that the New Statesman earlier reported about how the Director of IT at the Electoral Commission, Mr Hubert Akumiah "disappeared" after helping John Mahama and the NDC to subvert the sovereign will of the people of Ghana. Sources at the Electoral Commission told the New Statesman that Mr Akumiah allegedly connived with the NDC and STL to "steal the election" for John Mahama. With these sources, having already indicated their preparedness to testify at the Supreme Court, the noose is closing in on Mr Akumiah and the role he played in ensuring victory for the NDC. According to an EC source, Mr Akumiah was directly involved in ensuring the non-deletion of names that had engaged in multiple registration in strongholds of the NDC across the length and breadth of the country. This, according to the EC source, was done in connivance with officials from STL, the company that compiled the biometric voter register for the EC. Also, the intercepting of election results by STL, before onward re-faxing to the EC strongroom, according to the EC source, was facilitated by Mr Akumiah. Thus, before officials of the other political parties saw the results, the NDC and the EC, through Mr Akumiah, had ensured its manipulation. This connivance between the EC, STL and the NDC is one area the NPP in its petition will prove before the Supreme Court to buttress its case for the declaration of its Presidential Candidate for the 2012 elections, Nana Akufo-Addo, as the winner of the December 7 poll.