Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the EC
•The EC chairperson has said the 2020 election was a historic one
• She said the 2020 election is the first to be held with no donor funding
• Aside from these, she said the election saved the country $90 million
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, has revealed that the 2020 elections is one of the first elections to be held without donor funding.
According to Daily Graphic report sighted by GhanaWeb, the EC chairperson indicated that the 2020 election was fully funded by the government of Ghana.
Speaking at the ceremony of the high-level parliamentary seminar on: “Two decades of democratic elections in ECOWAS member states: Achievements, challenges and the way forward”, in Winneba, she noted, the 2020 election saved the country $90 million.
“Notwithstanding inflation and price hikes and the fact that we incurred additional costs owing to the COVID-19 protocols we deployed throughout the election, we cut the cost per voter, from 13 dollars per head in 2016 to 7 dollars per head. Through a reduction in cost, we saved the government a formidable sum of $90 million.
“We were met with many challenges, but we surmounted most of them and those we could not overcome, we learned from. Sadly, seven lives were lost, and though these did not occur at our polling stations or arise as a result of misconduct on our part, one life lost is one too many. We are hoping that our security agencies will share their findings and recommendations for future learning,” Jean Mensa said.
Meanwhile, the Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Boamoah Otokunor, disagrees with the Chairperson’s claims.
Speaking on Citi TV, Peter Otokunor said the 2020 elections was the most expensive election Ghana ever had.
He explained, “This is the most expensive election ever held in the country because we spent almost a billion to replace a register that was not faulty just to go and buy another register which was problematic.
“Nothing next to best practice was employed in the 2020 general election. She said that the election was transparent but I see this election as the most non-transparent election ever held in the history of this country. The integrity and the credibility of the election was completely botched,” he stressed.