EC, NPP tussle over BVDs
The Electoral Commission (EC) has denied claims by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that it wants to influence the outcome of the 2016 election by deploying faulty Biometric Verification Device (BVDs) machines to the NPPs strongholds.
However, the EC's Deputy Communications Director, Yussif Ayuba, said it is not possible for the EC to deliberately deploy faulty machines to the Ashanti and Eastern regions.
“...That cannot be possible, and it is not true that the Electoral Commission is going to deploy faulty BVDs to the strongholds of the New Patriotic Party. It is never true, and it is not possible for the Electoral Commission to hatch something of this nature,” he said in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM.
“These BVDs we’ve spoken a lot about it, and we’ve said we are going to deploy 2 BVDs per polling station, and in addition to that, we’ll have backups at the constituency level and also at the regional level.”
Mr Ayuba also urged the NPP to desist from running to the press on the least suspicion. According to him, the doors of the EC are always opened for dialogue.
"It is a stakeholder collaboration. It is not just the Electoral Commission that will ensure that the elections are peaceful. Every Ghanaian, every political party has a stake in ensuring that all these things are achieved,” he said.
“Sometimes when we hear some of these issues, it looks a bit strange to us. We would want the political parties to collaborate with the Electoral Commission more so that if problems are identified, then we solve them as a collective,” he added