NDC National Elections Directorate sets records straight

By
Patience Gbeze, GNA

Accra, Oct. 11, GNA – Mr Bede A. Ziedeng,
Acting Director of Elections of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on
Thursday denied allegations that the National Elections Directorate, headed by
Mr Ofosu Ampofo failed to collate the 2016 presidential results.

Mr Ziedeng said the Directorate duly collated
all the results, which was compiled by members of the Directorate as it does
every election year, and that, the collated results are available for
verification at the headquarters.

He was addressing a press conference in Accra
to correct media report suggesting that the Directorate did not collate the
results of the 2016 presidential elections.

“Even at the time former President John Mahama
made his concession speech, the National Elections Directorate had collated the
results of over 235 constituencies.

“The collation of results were duly carried
out and indeed the National Elections Directorate continuously furnished the
NDC representatives in the electoral Commissions Strong Room with collated
results until the final declaration.

He said after official declaration of results,
the Elections Directorate, under its former Director Mr Ampofo, started a
process of retrieving all the pink sheet from the polling stations in the
country for the post-declaration verification and analysis.

“The Directorate was waiting for the Electoral
Commission to gazette the polling station results, so that we could compare the
figures. To date the EC has failed to gazette the polling station results, and
so no opportunity for verification,” he explained.

“We had parliamentary candidates in all the
275 constituencies. None of them has complained about non-collation of results.
Even those challenging the election results rely on our collated results,” he
added.

He said the allegations were media propaganda
to tarnish the reputation of members of the Directorate, adding that, “members
of the National Elections Directorate is made up of experienced and hardworking
people, who will never allow anything untoward to happen to the party”.

“It is this same Elections Directorate, which
was compelled to move around the whole country to all the polling stations to
retrieve and assemble all the pink sheets to help mount a credible defence when
the New Patriotic Party filed the Election petition in 2012.

“it is therefore factually inaccurate for
anyone to claim that the Elections Directorate or the Director of Elections did
not or failed to collate the results of the 2016 presidential elections, when
indeed the facts point to the contrary,” he added.

He said the fact the private infrastructure
deployed to collate results directly from the polling stations crashed soon
after it was deployed “does not mean that no results were collated, eventually
the party had to fall back on the National Elections Directorate for the
collation of the results.”

GNA

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