Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, the Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission (EC) [left] and Franklin Cudjoe, IMANI boss
Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, the Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission (EC), has admonished policy think-tank IMANI Africa for what he perceives as baseless accusations against the commission, suggesting that IMANI should have issued an apology for the erroneous claims.
His remarks were in reaction to IMANI’s recent criticisms of the EC’s disposal of election equipment described as obsolete, which led IMANI to petition the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for an investigation.
IMANI accused the EC of “misappropriation,” “wastage,” and “misuse” of resources, alleging that the recent disposal of equipment was an attempt to erase evidence of falsehoods regarding the purchase history of electoral equipment.
IMANI said in a statement released on Monday, May 6, 2024, “We do not believe that the EC and its commercial counterparties in these transactions complied with the highest standards of data handling and protection required in the transfer and/or disposal of such sensitive equipment. At any rate, none of them had the requisite certifications to be trusted with such a task.”
It added, “The organisation added that “the EC’s most recent conduct has been necessitated by a need to curtail transparency and accountability, and thus was motivated by a collective conflict of interest and potential corruption. By its actions, it is attempting to erase inventory records and physical evidence of the blatant falsehoods it has told over the last four years regarding the purchase history of expensive electoral equipment.
“We asserted our longstanding claim that the EC’s electoral equipment is a portfolio of multiple items, bought and refurbished at different intervals between 2011 and 2019. That portfolio does not uniformly date to 2011 or 2012 as the EC has falsely and persistently claimed, and could thus not be so uniformly obsolete as to warrant a firesale to mysterious bidders, who have kept the prime portions for themselves and discarded the rest to be used as scrap. Ghana cannot continue to be milked in this fashion.”
However, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, in an interview on Peace FM’s “Kokrokoo” morning show dismissed these claims, labelling them as “unsubstantiated.”
He pointed to IMANI’s past scepticism during the EC’s voter registration exercise amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, where IMANI doubted the possibility of high turnout figures predicted by the EC.
Ultimately, the EC registered 17 million people within 38 days, exceeding IMANI’s expectations.
Dr. Quaicoe suggested that IMANI should have acknowledged their error and apologised to the EC for it doubts.
“The best thing the think tank should have done after realising this achievement by the electoral management body admitted they erred and say “I am sorry” but the Commission did not receive any such response from IMANI.”
He defended the EC’s actions regarding the disposal of obsolete equipment, stating that manufacturers had declared the machines’ lifespan had ended meaning, they no longer produce them, hence, recommended they get new ones and also upgrade their data centre at an estimated cost of 15 million dollars.
However, Dr. Serebour revealed that the EC opted to build new data centres at a lower cost of 6 million dollars.
Warning IMANI against baseless criticism, Dr. Quaicoe cautioned that unfounded attacks could damage the Commission’s reputation and undermine public trust in the EC’s integrity and effectiveness.
“This is why I said if they don’t take care, instead of people thinking they are think tanks, they will be talk tanks. Because if you keep talking without any basis, have you not then turned into a talk tank.
“If you pooh-pooh the Electoral Commission, you’re destroying the image of the Commission,” he said.
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