Ghana’s ubiquitous Electoral Commission has presented a budget of GH2.3 Billion ($575 million!) to parliament as the cost of election 2016, the Daily Searchlight can reveal.
The money constitutes GH1.7billion being the cost of the election itself, and an additional six hundred million for a possible run-off.
The Daily Searchlight has learned that the EC is demanding the huge sums as a basic requirement, if it is able to initiate and implement any electoral reforms, which Ghanaians are calling for.
The demands are coming at a time when political parties and EC have agreed on a number of reforms with regard to Ghana’s elections.
The demands from the EC are causing consternation within the corridors of parliament, said our sources.
This newspaper has learned that if the EC’s astronomical and totally unjustifiable demands are met, Ghana’s budget for 2016 with regard to 2016 goods and services would be thrown out of gear.
According to the Member of parliament for Techiman South, Hon. Adjei Mensah, who was the first to hint at the huge demand on Friday, however, the bill presented by the EC to parliament for approval was so huge that the Ministry of Finance was unwilling to finance the expenditure speaking on Kasapa FM on Friday. Hon. Adjei Mensah, who is a member of the Parliamentary Committee on independent Government Institutions (IGA); said that recently, the EC appeared before the Committee with its financial proposals on electoral reforms ahead of election 2016.
He said that the bill was so huge that sources at the Ministry of Finance have said that if the money is given to EC would dislocate the entire government budget for the year 2016 in terms of goods and services.
Government annually spends hundreds of millions of dollars on goods and services. Pushed further, Hon. Adjei Mensah refused to name the figure proposed by the EC, but also said that the money was much larger than what Ghana has so far paid by way of judgment debts in recent times.
Ghana’s Electoral Commission has been in the habit of charging rather astronomical figures for the conduct of elections. For election 2012, the EC proposed a bill of 243.5 million Ghana cedis.
For the conduct of the District Assembly elections that was cancelled earlier this year, the Electoral Commission (EC) is said to have spent about GH317 million.
From all indications, it would seem that the proposals put forward by the EC for the conduct of election 2016 including the reforms, are much higher than we have heard so far.
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