New date set for MMDCEs referendum -December 17

The Electoral Commission (EC) has now settled on December 17, this year for the referendum on the election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs).

Earlier, the EC had fixed December 10, 2019, for the referendum.

The Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr Serebour Quaicoe, announced the new date at the launch of a coalition formed by some civil society organisations (CSOs) to push for the election of MMDCEs in Accra yesterday.

He said the change in the date was occasioned by the delay caused by the injunction application by a citizen, Mr Umar Ayuba, to the Supreme Court to stop the limited registration of voters which formed part of activities in the road map to the referendum.

Mr Ayuba filed the injunction against the EC's decision to limit the limited voters registration exercise to its district offices on grounds that the move would disenfranchise many people.

The Apex Court dismissed the injunction on June 12, this year, but Dr Serebour said the legal action had affected their timelines, hence the change in the date for the referendum.

"We had our timelines that we were working to but the injunction made us lose some 14 days. We had to adjust our dates and finally settled on December 17, this year, as the date for the referendum. If nothing untoward occurs, we will do the referendum on that date because 2020 is a packed year and we do not want to add the referendum to the activities for that year," he said.

Dr Serebour called for the support of stakeholders such as the media, the Judiciary, political parties and the general public to help the EC deliver on its mandate.

CSO Coalition

The government has activated a process to amend two clauses in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana to pave the way for the election of MMDCEs and to allow for political participation in local level elections.

Two bills seeking amendments to Articles 243(1) and 55(3) for election of MMDCEs and introduction of political party participation in the local elections have been presented to Parliament to be passed.

The CSOs coalition is, therefore, meant to engage key stakeholders including the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the leadership of Parliament to speed up the amendment process.

The coalition is being spearheaded by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), the Centre for Local Governance Advocacy (CLGA) and the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG).

Dubbed the CSO Coalition on the National Referendum and Election of MMDCEs, the coalition will also mobilise other stakeholders and the public to support the referendum that will pave the way for the participation of political parties in the election of MMDCEs slated for 2021.

Key personalities at the launch of the coalition were the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama; her two deputies, Mr Osei Bonsu Amoah and Mr Kwasi Agyei-Boateng, the Executive Director of IDEG, Dr Emmanuel Akwettey, and the Executive Director of CLGA, Professor Vladimir Antwi-Danso.

There were representatives from political parties, including the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Convention People's Party (CPP), the Progressive People's Party (PPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDP).

Action

Dr Akwettey explained that apart from engaging the President and Parliament to expedite action on the amendment to those articles, the coalition would canvass support from relevant stakeholders to facilitate the process for a successful referendum.

He stressed that the overall objective of the coalition was to ensure that a solid foundation was prepared for the election of MMDCEs in 2021.

To do that, he said, the coalition would strengthen engagement with key stakeholders such as the EC and the political parties and also use media campaign and advocacy to create awareness of the importance of electing MMDCEs.

Support

In a speech, Hajia Mahama said the constitutional reforms and referendum processes leading to the election of the MMDCEs had been activated.

The minister stressed that electing MMDCEs was the best card to play, since the current system where MMDCEs were appointed by the President was inimical to local and inclusive governance.

"If we want to have the MMDCEs elected, the first thing is to ensure that Article 243(1) is amended; so I will urge MPs to help pass these bills when Parliament resumes in October," she said.

In their solidarity messages, the representatives of the political parties gave an assurance that they would work with other stakeholders for the successful election of the MMDCES.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

How Technology is helping solve civic challenges

How Technology is helping solve civic challenges

Technology is allowing citizens around the world to participate in solving local, national, and global problems.

The emergence of ICTs has transformed the current and future surroundings and models of development and coexistence in all of its fields. The adoption and integration that they have in more or less extent had, as well as the positive or negative impact they have been able to generate, is based on their role as binding agents, ones capable of generating products and processes that can be attributed to actions and results of innovation.

Civil society — the network of institutions that define us as actors in the civil sphere autonomous of governments — is supposed to serve as the leader in promoting diversity and social benefit.

Unfortunately, non-profit groups, academic institutions and philanthropic organizations engaged in social change are struggling to adapt to the new global, technological and virtual landscape.

Legacy modes of operation, governance and leadership competencies rooted in the age of physical realities continue to dominate the space.

To be sure, early adopters are already using technology to effectuate change at a pace and scale not previously available in the physical and digitally disconnected world. The marginal cost of delivery remains too high. But with today’s technologies, with support from the board and management to make it happen, social change at scale is possible.

The core assets needed today to advance social change — ideas, individuals and institutions — continue to be the primary ingredients. What is changing and will continue to change, however, is the way these assets are assembled to deliver maximum social impact.

Sometimes even the best-intentioned policymakers overlook the power of the people. And even the best-intentioned discussions on social impact and leveraging big data for the social sector can obscure the power of every-day people in their communities.

Over the last few years we have seen growing recognition of the potential of “civic tech,” or the use of technology that “empowers citizens to make government more accessible, efficient and effective”. At the same time, we are yet to witness a true tech-enabled transformation of how government works and how citizens engage with institutions and with each other to solve societal problems.

For organisations immersed in civic tech, we can become so focused on the “tech” of civic tech that we lose sight of the civic part of our mission - to innovate technologies which empower others to change for the better their own lives, communities, cities and countries.

The viability and growth of the civic tech sector depends on the sharing of assets and practices among the community. Applying network technology or platforms to meet the demands of diverse actors in the space and matching those needs with the supply of expertise and tools will be key to continued expansion and creation of meaningful impact.

Disinformation and Journalism

Disinformation and Journalism

The news media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decades. Through digital sources, there has been a tremendous increase in the reach of journalism, social media, and public engagement. Checking for news online—whether through Google, Twitter, Facebook, major newspapers, or local media websites—has become ubiquitous, and smartphone alerts and mobile applications bring the latest developments to people instantaneously around the world.

This has placed journalism in a state of considerable instability. New digital platforms have unleashed innovative journalistic practices that enable novel forms of communication and greater global reach than at any point in human history. But on the other hand, disinformation and hoaxes that are popularly referred to as “fake news” are accelerating and affecting the way individuals interpret daily developments.

Journalists are on the frontline of the ‘fake news’ wars. As truth becomes a casualty of disinformation campaigns designed to disrupt democracies and pull down the shutters on open societies around the world, journalists must defend freedom of expression and the public’s right to know.

Finding ways through these contemporary information challenges is of utmost importance for journalists – but more broadly its fundamental to the maintenance of open societies.

Attention is also being given to making audiences more discriminating and resilient, through empowering them with critical Media and Information Literacy competencies. These steps are also part of the solution, although they are generally of a medium-term nature.

For journalists, journalism students, and journalism educators it is mission-critical to understand the nature and magnitude of the threats and have a holistic view of the attempts to counter them.

“Fake news” and sophisticated disinformation campaigns are especially problematic in democratic systems, and there is growing debate on how to address these issues without undermining the benefits of digital media. 

In order to maintain an open, democratic system, it is important that government, business, and consumers work together to solve these problems. Governments should promote news literacy and strong professional journalism in their societies. The news industry must provide high-quality journalism in order to build public trust and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them. Technology companies should invest in tools that identify fake news, reduce financial incentives for those who profit from disinformation, and improve online accountability. Educational institutions should make informing people about news literacy a high priority. Finally, individuals should follow a diversity of news sources, and be skeptical of what they read and watch.

EC Chair assures election 2020 to be water-tight

To begin with, the Commission is worried that its IT staff do not have administrative rights to passwords to access the biometric database gathered through Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) equipment.
Mrs. Jean Mensa said she was told by STL, they found the Ghanaian staff “untrainable”.
Citing an example of the extent of steep reliance on STL company, she said a recent plan to clean 13,000 biometric verification devices ahead of the referenda for the creation of new regions.
By clean up, she explained, the devices had to be wiped and re-tested for effectiveness. But this will cost $1.7m to be paid STL.
Jean Mensa said the EC was prepared to dole out $200,000 to the IT department to run this clean-up exercise. But none of them had been trained to execute the technical job, she indicated.
According to her, the feedback from her IT department was: “we don’t know how to do it.”
It is these biometric devices purchased in 2011 which are set to be re-used in the voter registration exercise. But these devices, according to the EC, are now outdated technology, bulky, unwieldy and expensive.
The casings holding the devices “is a whole suitcase as though you are going to an engagement to marry a woman,” Jean Mensa said and revealed each case costs $2,500.
Imagine the cost involved in ordering several more for a registration exercise, she suggested.
Newer technologies are less expensive, more efficient and certainly don’t come in huge casings, she revealed.
While it will cost $56m to refurbish the devices and purchase new ones for the mass registration exercise, buying a whole new set of emerging biometric devices will cost $20m less, the EC chairperson said.
This is why, the Chairperson explained, is unable to set up registration centers widely across districts for the 2019 voter registration exercise.
It would be expensive to do an expansive registration exercise with the current biometric devices hence the decision to restrict the exercises to the district offices only.
“Why do you go on with such a system that is not user-friendly, that is costly” Jean Mensa quizzed.
The EC chairperson indicated, the Commission would rather save that money to buy the modern devices adapted with multiple capabilities beyond voter verification.
They can transmit pink sheets by scanning and can also be used for registration. “Some of them are like tablets,” she picked out an advantage of new technology.
The decision has irked the opposition National Democratic Congress whose General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia sees an attempt to disenfranchise newly eligible voters.
“The EC is doing everything possible to ensure people’s right to register is suppressed, that is a way of rigging elections,” he fumed on Top Story on Joy FM.

'Let us know the outcome of investigation into your IT system in 2016 election' - JDM demands from EC

The former Ghanaian president is demanding the EC makes full disclosure of the report of investigations into the hacking of its IT system on Election Day on December 7, 2016.
“If they have investigated they should let us know what compromised the system [and] what steps are being taken to safeguard the system being compromised again,” John Dramani Mahama said at the Business School of Oxford University Friday.
The elections management body kept the nation on tenterhooks after it failed to announce certified results of the 2016 polls after it closed several hours after.
The Chairperson then, Charlotte Osei, at a news conference claimed their electronic transmission system had been "compromised" for which reason they had to rely on a manual system of transmission.
A week after the polls that saw the opposition New Patriotic Party convincingly beat the incumbent National Democratic Congress, Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, said the figures kept changing anytime they were keyed into the system.
Following Charlotte Osei’s removal from office as well as two of her deputies - Amadu Sulley and Ms Georgina Opoku Amankwaa- by President Nana Akufo-Addo, for stated misbehaviour, her successor has yet to comment on the aftermath of the investigations.
Three years on, the EC is yet to furnish Ghanaians with what got it's IT system compromised. 
Delivering a lecture at the Business School of Oxford University on the topic, 'Democracy & Elections in Contemporary Africa', John Mahama said making known the outcome of the investigations, would help safeguard the integrity of the upcoming 2020 elections.
At least if they have, they haven’t shared those findings with us. It was important for us to find out what had happened so that we forestall any disputes around the IT system in the next elections 2020,” he explained.
NDC’s position
Speaking Monday on Newsnight on Joy FM, the NDC’s Director of Elections, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said the call by the former President, who is again contesting the 2020 elections, is “fair” and “reasonable”.
That he noted, will further boost the confidence of the people and the contending parties as far as the next general elections are concerned.
“Any reasonable person would want to have clarity…So these are very legitimate concerns,” Afriyie Ankrah argued.

NPP reacts
However, the New Patriotic Party says whether or not the EC publishes the reports of its investigations, will not change the final results of the polls as announced by the Commission, which also tallies with what the opposition party then, collated.
As far as the NPP is concerned coupled by the mechanisms they rolled out on the day of voting “there was nothing wrong with the results,” Director of Elections, Evans Nimako told the host of Newsnight, Evans Mensah.
Mr Nimako said the NPP adequately prepared itself for the 2016 elections and took a keen interest in the EC’s activities and put measures in place for that.
“We monitored the legal frameworks, we watched the EC’s calendar and we matched them accordingly,” Nimako added.

Source: Myjoyonline

Copies of Audited account of political parties can be acquired for 250 cedis says EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has released the financial accounts of all political parties, marking a significant step towards transparency, probity and accountability.

The release of the statements of accounts is the first time in the 27-year history of the Fourth Republic that the financial records of political parties have been made available to the citizenry.

It followed a two-year advocacy campaign and a lawsuit filed by CitizenGhana Movement (CGM), publication of the statements had reversed decades-long trend of political parties breaching the 1992 Constitution, which guarantees the citizenry the right to information.

The Political Parties Act which mandated all political parties present their statements of accounts to the public on an annual basis, through the commission and despite the breach of the law, it previously failed to enforce the provisions, until now.

On February 9, 2018, the CGM secured an order from the Human Rights Court, Accra directing the EC to publish the statements of accounts of all political parties for the purpose of public information in accordance with the law.

It ordered the commission to perform the duties by September 1, 2018, however, it failed to meet the deadline ostensibly because of the constitutional procedures and subsequent transition going on at the time.

To prompt the action, CGM wrote to the new commission in December 2018 to remind the public body to comply with the court’s order and in response, the commission issued a notice demanding all political parties submit their statements of accounts to the commission by February 13, 2019.

Subsequently, on March 21, 2019, the commission published the statements of accounts of all registered political parties in accordance with the court’s order, the commission also prescribed a fee the movement was to pay for copies of the accounts and it paid the amount and expected to receive copies shortly.

Financial disclosures by political parties is a key public accountability mechanism making sources of political party funding discourage acceptance of funds from unsavoury individuals or organisations.

The movement is hopeful the release of the statements of accounts will mark the beginning of a new era of transparency, probity and accountability in the financing of political parties.

-citinewsroom.com

We'll make sure Ministers and MPs are accountable to their promises -Chair of Assurance C'ttee

The newly appointed chairman of parliament’s government assurance committee, Collins Owusu Amankwah has resolved to hold government functionaries including ministers, members of parliament, and heads of institutions accountable in the discharge of their duties.

“I think it is important to give real meaning to democracy and for me one of the fundamental principles of democratic society is for the government to be held accountable and responsible by its citizens.

We as a committee has parliamentary oversight over the executive arm of government and as the orders stipulate we have to pursue or scrutinize all promises, assurances, undertakings given by ministers from time to time” he told B&FT in an interview.

According to him, it is about accountability and reckons people must be held accountable and responsible, especially ministers.

On when he intends to execute his agenda, he indicated that he has already kept in touch with leadership and is yet to meet members to see how best they can proceed together.

He also maintained that the committee’s power in terms of the scope of operations is not limited to the floor or plenary but outside parliament.

“All those promises been made by ministers, it does not matter the platform, once we are able to track the time you made those promises, it is our duty to scrutinise and also to ask you how far you have gone with those promises”.

Parliament has reconstituted the leadership of its committees, Mahama Ayariga, Joseph Yieleh-Chireh, Fiifi Kwetey, all Minority members, are some of the big names who have lost their positions in the latest change.

Mr.Owusu Amankwah replaced Manso-Adubia MP, Yaw Frimpong Addo, who takes over as chairman of the Environment, Science and Technology Committee which was chaired by the late MP, Emmanuel Agyarko and Former Deputy Agriculture Minister, William Quaitoo is now chairman of the Local Government Committee.

Aside from the fact that some replaced committee leaders are serving in the ECOWAS and AU Parliaments, it remains unclear the reasons behind some of the changes for the committee leadership positions.

Ghana has a unicameral Legislature composed of 275 Members of Parliament from single-member constituencies with an Executive President who appoints Ministers majority of whom by the Constitution have to come from Parliament.

Parliament operates very much on the lines of the Parliament of Westminster.

The Government, for example, cannot enter into any international agreement without the ratification of Parliament: and various such controls exist.

Source: B&FT

"Arresting the dollar" and "Dumsor" - Should we take promises of politicians with a pinch of salt?

The Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu has assured Ghanaians that the country will not return to the dark days of dumsor under the watch of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

According to him, the recent challenges in the power sector are primarily due to technical issues.

Delivering a statement in Parliament on Friday, the Energy Minister said, the current challenge has nothing to do with financing.

“The Ministry of Energy is currently working with the Volta River Authority to come out with the best way of repowering the T3 Plant. We shall therefore revert to you on this issue at the appropriate time. On this issue, let me say that events that led to previous governments experiencing prolonged outage of power, popularly known as Dumsor will never ever be witnessed in this country,” he said.

Power to be normalized in about five days – Amewu

Parts of Ghana experienced outages twice this week.

The problem affected areas including Madina, Koforidua, Achimota, Kasoa, North Kaneshie, Cape Coast, parts of Takoradi and other parts of the country.

While taking a tour of the affected power infrastructure that led to the recent outages, Mr. Amewu said he hoped that the challenges will be rectified within the next five days.

“Definitely because of the construction work that is going on [at Pokuase] there is a need for them [companies in the power distribution chain] to halt the transmission of power for this period. So these are some of the problems they are facing. You can see the progress of work and my expectation is that it is going to be completed within about five days. But we’ve put in measures to minimize the impact. This is one of the major causes of interruptions. The problem has been caused by technical issues,” Amewu assured.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Jonathan Amoako-Baah also assured that measures have been put in place to ensure consistent power supply within the next few days.

“There is enough stock for the generation stations to provide the electricity we need in Ghana. We are having these challenges and difficulties because of the project at Pokuase. There is no dumsor. When we finish this work, we are going to go back to the reliability of supply that we have been used to in the past. So Ghanaians I want you to be rest assured that in a few days when this work is completed we are going to go back to the status quo,” Mr. Amoako-Baah added.

Source: Citinewsroom

Nigeria Decides or Indecisive Nigeria? – A Comprehensive Analysis

Nigeria Decides or Indecisive Nigeria? – A Comprehensive Analysis

By Juliet A. Amoah

An Anti-Climax

Nigeria is a country of many things, hugely successful writers, impressive academics, producers of culture influencing films and big barrels of oil. Effective planning seems not to be one of them.

Having rescheduled its 16 February elections in what was described by the BBC as “a dramatic overnight press conference”, a mere five hours before polls were due to have opened, the country is gearing to vote this Saturday February 23.

Observers say not much can be expected of the process. The general feeling is that momentum has been lost and any chance of significant voter turnout is slim. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has sought to quieten doubters. It gave itself a deadline of Thursday 21 February to reconfigure some 180,000 card readers that are being used to validate the more than 80 million voters' identity cards and to check their biometric details. By Friday 22 February, the INEC says it will deploy all the voting materials around the country.

The jury is still out on whether they can achieve this is or not. With less than 24 hours remaining to Election Day, a significant number of people at home, on the continent and abroad say the weeklong extension is too brief to correct all the lapses that the institution enumerates as contributing to the reschedule.

Inabilities and Instabilities

The INEC has not won any points for itself in its conduct in the meantime. For instance, it went back on its word that it would stick to the law on campaigning. After initially saying that the ban imposed last week on campaigning would remain in force, the much-insulted INEC decided to allow the campaigns to go on and to end 24 hours to the new February 23 date.

Political pundits across Twittersphere and on TVs everywhere say they doubt this will influence the election itself. What will is the possible low turnout of voters on the day, in spite of the declaration of Friday 22 a national holiday to allow for travel. They say the country cannot expect to see the thousands of people who travelled a long way to cast their votes, going the second time in a week.

Accusations and the place of technology

In a statement issued on the day of the postponement, the INEC gave several reasons for the delay, including attempted sabotage and logistical issues such as bad weather and problems with delivering the ballot papers.

One wonders where the place of technology is in all of this. For a country as big and populous as Nigeria, printing ballot papers is certainly not the most efficient of methods, or is it?   Elsewhere, votes are cast on tech platforms. Surely, this would have saved INEC and Nigerian voters all the inconveniences.

INEC is sweating. The Chief of the institution is quoted as saying that “keeping to the new date is central to maintaining the public's trust otherwise there would be "pandemonium" if election materials cannot deployed this second time”.

The voters are venting. Money and time they did not have has been wasted, and a second round of this may not be feasible for some, leading to a feeling of disenfranchisement.

“How can a country which has practiced democracy for some twenty odd years be this inept?” fumes Bolade who travelled from Ghana to vote in his home in Enugu last week.

All eyes on Nigeria

Prior to the rescheduled elections, the more than 70 presidential aspirants bombarded Nigerians with pledges, slogans and social media messages. Phrases and buzzwords such as taking the country to the "next level", and bringing "power to the people” flew around like cotton candy at a children’s birthday party.

Much like in elections elsewhere, the power of slogans can often times drown out the details. Key policy issues such as - education, health and the economy are all left painfully ambiguous or given only half-hearted explanations about how they will be achieved by politicians. The electorate is left with hearsay and half-baked analysis from multiple sources and sometimes from their own lived experiences of yester years.

Penplusbytes, a Ghana based not-for-profit, has been following the analysis and the debates with keen interest. Having covered elections all over the continent using its Africa Elections Project (AEP) platforms, Penplusbytes has the unique capability of offering a serving for both pedestrian and elite tastes. The former, it gets from its social media tracking tool “Aggie” which crawls on Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms to bring in what people are saying on the ground, while it provides elite analysis by monitoring radio and TV broadcasts with experts and professors from multiple stations.

The level of information is rich and there is no shortage of stories and quips pre, during and post elections. For the next 24 hours all eyes will be on Nigeria and over a period of seventy-two hours, most eyes and ears are sure to be on Nigeria.  Keep up with all of the news if you can, alternatively you can rely on bitesize information from this savvy not-for-profit good governance promoter.

The writer is the Executive Director of Penplusbytes

Contact her on WhatsApp: +233241995737 or via Twitter @Jamoah2