Revenue From Voter ID Replacement Safe - Charlotte Osei

The Electoral Commission (EC) has accrued an amount of GH¢2.5 million from the replacement of voter IDs for Ghanaians ahead of the 2016 December elections.

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, revealed this in Parliament on Wednesday in a response to an urgent question filed in the name of the Honorable Member of Parliament (MP) for Subin, Eugene Antwi, on how much the Commission accrued from the process and how it was spent.

She told the House that the Commission also made more than GH¢42,000 cedis from the sale of media accreditation cards, adding that all monies were currently safe in the Commission's account at Ghana Commercial Bank.

Ahead of the 2016 general elections, EC announced that journalists who wished to cover the elections were to pay GH¢10 for the accreditation card.

The Commission also charges GH¢5 to replace Identification Cards (IDs) of Voters.

Mrs Osei explained that the information was not included in the EC's financial statement submitted to the government, saying it was an "oversight".

"We have opened an account with the Ghana Commercial Bank and all monies we charged for the replacement of lost ID cards went into that account... We have not expended any of that," she said.

She said the Commission resorted to charging journalists because at the time they were preparing the budget estimates for the year, it did not occur to them to include the costs of providing accreditation to journalists and that there was no way the Commission could have estimated the number of journalists who would cover the elections.

"This is not the first time the Commission has charged journalists for accreditation. This had happened in the District Assembly elections and so it wasn't the first time," she said.

Source: ISD (Gilbert Ankrah)

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