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IMANI Africa has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to reconsider its position on acquiring a new electoral system software and the compilation of new voters’ register for the 2020 general election.
Bright Simons, the Vice President of IMANI, said the new system was expensive and could reduce the quality of elections due to limited time.
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Speaking at a press briefing in Accra, Simons said the Commission had limited time to go through technical processes such as system configuration and rigorous testing before it was deployed for the registration and elections.
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He expressed concern over EC's decision to sole-source the software contract, saying it was a recipe for bribery and corruption.
"The system they are going to procure is new and there will not be enough time to go through all the technical configurations such as field testing before the elections day. For the old system, we already know the challenges and we have been using it since 2012," he said.
He suggested that the EC replaced the broken down equipment to augment the already existing ones to reduce cost.
Speaking on Accra-based Peace FM, Kwamena Duncan urged IMANI and the political parties to go to court to seek redress and stop what he described as "patapaa" politics against the EC.
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He said: "Why don"t you go to court...it will be dangerous to stop the EC, a constitutional body with a clear mandate from doing its work. That will be constitutional lawlessness. This recycling of matters we have heard over and over, you will ask yourself is there an agenda?"
"Otherwise, the Supreme Court is ready for more cases...go to court. What is the meaning of this patapaa; political party patapaa?" he queried.