CHRAJ deploys 300 election observers
The Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has deployed 300 observers nationwide for the December 7 elections.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday in Accra, Mrs Comfort Akosua Edu, the Head of Public Relations and Communication at the CHRAJ said: “On the day of elections, observers are expected to be present at their respective polling stations early enough, to cast their votes and then start observing as well as monitoring the process”.
She said these were part of measures to ensure that the right of a citizen to vote was not infringed upon, explaining that like the Police, CHRAJ had also identified some hotspots from negative past reports.
The observers would also to pay attention to the voting centres of Presidential Candidates, Members of Parliament, and Municipal District Executive.
The district directors and their assistants, she said, were to cover at least two polling stations and report electronically directly to their regional directors.
“The sub regional offices in Obuasi and Tema will send their reports to the Ashanti Regional Office and the head Office, respectively,” she explained.
“The regional directors will also send their reports to the National Coalition Committee (NCC), a committee set up by the Acting Commissioner and the Assistant.”
At the head office, she said, the directors would visit selected constituencies and report directly to the NCC.
There are three sub-committees – the Compilation Committee, Analysis Committee and the Editorial Committee – who would work to ensure that an interim report compiled from the observation was released two days after the elections.
CHRAJ, Mrs Edu said, had been engaging in media monitoring to find out whether all the parties contesting the elections were given fair coverage, while institutions mandated to prevent malpractices were also covered.
The media monitoring, she said, covered news items, features, editorial reports, animations and articles in all the 10 regions.
She said the Commission, whose fundamental role was to protect, promote and defend the fundamental human rights of Ghanaians had also been monitoring the political environment before the elections with the media of as its main focus.
CHRAJ has offices across the 10 regions, two sub-regional offices and 97 district offices across.
“The regional offices are headed by lawyers and the district offices have university graduates from competent fields as heads as well, and this should tell you the calibre of people we are deploying.” Mrs. Edu said.
The coverage of GNA’s Election dubbed: “GNA Tracks Election 2016,” is being funded by Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) the nation’s foremost indigenous oil marketing company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.
The project seeks to sensitise the electorate on the various issues raised by the political parties, elections management body and other governance institutions.
It also seeks to ensure that gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and the broader spectrum of the society, as well as contribute its quota to the achievement of a peaceful poll on December 7.
Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them to make an informed judgment.
Source: GNA