AAG to organise tutorials for political parties on advertising messages for Election 2012

The Advertising Association of Ghana (AAG) has expressed grave concern over campaign advertisement by political parties during general elections, pledging it would organise ethical tutorials for the parties to moderate the already charged atmosphere.

Mr Joel E. Nettey, Vice President of AAG gave the assurance when the Executive Council of the Association paid a courtesy call on Mr Fritz Baffour, Minister of Information and NDC Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South, in Accra on Friday.

He said the Association would soon roll out a programme for political parties to "Walk them through the rudiment of what good advertising is."

Speaking to journalists at the end of the courtesy call, Mr Nettey said the roll out would be done to appeal to the senses and good conscience of the political parties.

He urged media houses to be vigilant and say no to political parties who might want to use their network platforms to broadcast insults and intemperate language.

Earlier during the courtesy call on the Minister, Mr Nettey said the Association was in the process of completing the preparation of a drafted Bill for consideration by Parliament to establish an Advertising Council which could efficiently and effectively regulate the advertising landscape.

He reiterated concerns raised by the public over the unethical use of children in advertising as well as the promotion and marketing of alcohol through the media, stressing the establishment of an Advertising Council by parliamentary enactment would help address the issues.

Source: GNA

EC seeks the clergy’s help to compile credible voters’ register

Mr. Samuel Boadu, Deputy Brong-Ahafo Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), on Thursday appealed to the clergy to help the EC to compile a credible voters' register.

He said a credible biometric voter's register "could be a panacea to all election malpractices including rigging", indicating the new system would promote fairness and transparency in the upcoming December polls.

Mr Boadu made the appeal at a one-day workshop on the biometric voters registration exercise due to commence on March 24 this year and attended by 140 Christian and Muslim leaders in Sunyani.

The workshop was jointly organised by the Ghana Pentecostal Charismatic Council (GPCC) and the office of the National Chief Imam.

Mr. Boadu told the spiritual leaders that God/Allah frowned on all forms of electoral fraud and advised them to sensitise their members to abstain from engaging in electoral malpractices as perpetrators would attract His punishment on earth and in eternity.

He said the EC could acquire a credible voters' register if all Ghanaians played their respective roles effectively and entreated religious bodies to also be a watch dog by exposing minors and foreigners who might attempt to register during the exercise.

The Deputy EC Director however stressed that "due to the features in the biometric registration machine, it will not be possible for anyone to impersonate" and gave the assurance that the Commission would do its best to provide a credible register.

Mr. Boadu said it would not benefit any member of the EC if the Presidential and Parliamentary elections were rigged and urged Ghanaians to maintain their confidence in the Commission to consolidate the country's fledgling democracy.

He appealed to civil society and non-governmental organisations to help create awareness and educate the general public on the biometric system so that majority of eligible voters would participate in the exercise.

Mr. Issah Nasagri, Brong-Ahafo Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), said voting was a civic right and advised the participants to encourage their members to register in their numbers when the exercise begins.

He said any eligible voter who failed to participate in the exercise would not be allowed to exercise his or her franchise as the old voter's identification card would not be valid.

Mr. Nasagri expressed the hope that the EC would find lasting solutions to all the peculiar problems it recorded during the just-ended pilot of the biometric registration exercise.

Apostle Sansa Konjon, Brong-Ahafo Regional Secretary of the GPCC, in a welcoming address said since Christianity and Islam were the two dominant religions in the country, it therefore behooved on the leadership of the two bodies to help to make the exercise a success.

He observed that the December elections offered faith-based organisations another opportunity to play their divinely-inspired roles in Ghana's developmental processes.

Apostle Konjon, who is General Overseer of Zion Community Church International in the Sunyani Municipality, expressed optimism that the leadership of the two bodies would show commitment and adopt a more pro-active and holistic approach in preventing conflicts and violence before, during and after the general election.

GNA

Ghana Elections 2012 : Newspaper Monitoring Ghana Elections 2012- Headlines 9th March 2012

Daily Guide

1) NPP jabs NDC over economy-page 3

2) NDC Candidates pose no threat-page 10

3) Sefwi NPP Gets busy-page 10

 

The New Statesman

1)Dr Afari –GYAN assures Ghanaians of a credible voters' register-page 7

2)Watch out for unscrupulous politicians-page 7

The Chronicle

1)NCCE,EC urged to step up education  on biometric registration exercise-page 2

 

New Weekend Crusading Guide

1)Ensuring a peaceful Election-Nduom counsels Mills to walk the talk-page 6

The Ghanaian Times

1)      Ghanaians urged to ensure peaceful election-page 11

2)      OB:Watch out for unscrupulous politicians-page 11

3)      Catholic bishops call for passage of Political transition bill – page 12

 

Daily Graphic

1)EC to provide water ,soap at registration centres-page12

2)Participate in biometric voters registration-Kevianu- page 13

3)NPP already at the castle-Appiah –Pinkrah- page 13

 

No political campaigning in prisons; Use the media - Prisons Service

Political parties in Ghana may have to forget about campaigning in prison outfits ahead of this year's general elections because the authorities have declared them as no-go areas for politics.

According to the Ghana Prisons Service, political party campaigning or activity is not allowed at security installations and the prisons are also considered as such.

President John Evans Atta Mills at the commissioning of the Ankaful Maximum Prison indicated that his administration will ensure that prison inmates exercise their franchise in the 2012 elections. His decision has been endorsed by the Electoral Commission.

According to the President, the move is in conformity with a ruling given by the Supreme Court, which stipulated that inmates have the right to vote.

"The Supreme Court in a recent ruling stated that inmates have the right to vote during elections and I want to assure them that our government would abide by the Supreme Court ruling and therefore enable the Electoral Commission to put in place the necessary machinery and structures to enable inmates to exercise their God given rights," President Mills said.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Prisons Service, ASP Courage Atsem told Citi News although all security agencies vote, political campaigns are not allowed on their premises and added that same would be applied within the prisons.

Asked how the inmates would then hear the message of the various political parties to decide whom to vote for, ASP Atsem posited that "political parties do not come to our work places or our barracks to campaign to us, but we still get the political messages based on which we still make our choices."

He added: "The same would apply in the case of the prisoners as well. I'm sure the prisoners would get the messages from the political parties; from the print and electronic media. I can assure you that the prisoners have access to radio sets and TV sets and they listen to news on a daily basis."

"There is nothing that happens in this country that you'd ask a prisoner and he would say because he is in prison he has not heard of it," Atsem pointed out.

He, however, added that the Electoral Commission has been made aware of the position of the Ghana Prisons Service.

 

CITI FM

Newspaper Monitoring Ghana Elections 2012 ,8th March 2012

 

Headlines

Daily Graphic

1) Biometric system set to take off-page 1

2) Posterity will not forgive   us for violent polls-page 17

3) CPP, the only party to save Ghana-page 16

 

Daily Guide

1)      EC insists on verification- page 6

 

Ghanaian Times

1) EC assures of measures to eliminate double voting-page3

2) Ghanaians urged to help make Election 2012 free and fair-page 12

3) Election 2012 is a call to duty-page 12

 

 The Daily Dispatch

1)Will Ashanti Region  let NPP down Again-page 1

 

The New Crusading Guide

1)No double registration-page 3

2)NPP will sweep 16 seats in Accra-page 12

 

The chronicle

1)Minors told to stay away from registration exercise-page 2

2) A united Ghana would sustain peace and democracy-page 5

3)  Afari –Gyan assures of adequate checks in biometric registration-page 9

4)Low political campaign temperature in Central region

Ghana Elections 2012 : Dr Afari-Gyan assures Ghanaians of credible voters’ register

Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday assured Ghanaians that they had put in place adequate checks and balances to prevent double registration during the upcoming biometric registration exercise.

He assured that the biometric verification would be conducted on the election day, on December 7, but called for a high sense of vigilance on the part of all stakeholders in building a credible voters' register for Election 2012 and beyond.

"The Commission is procuring about 30,000 verification machines at an estimated cost of about $30 million, for the 23,000 polling stations across the country with back-ups to cater for any possible breakdown of the equipment on voting day," he said.

Dr Afari-Gyan gave the assurance at a round table discussion on the topic: "Biometric Voters' Registration and Verification System in West Africa: Nigeria's Experience, Ghana's Perspective" in Accra.

It was organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in partnership with the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) and with sponsorship from the European Commission and Star-Ghana.

The discussions threw more light on the Biometric Voter's Registration System and shared the experience of Nigeria in the implementation of the system, in order to sensitise the public on the prospects and its effectiveness.

He said the Commission had taken notice of all concerns raised about verification of the new voting system.

The Chairman of the EC explained that with the Biometric Voter's Registration System eligible voters would have their personal data, which included names, age, sex, residential addresses as well as their finger prints taken and processed into a data system to be verified on the voting day.

He indicated that the EC had successfully completed a pilot process of the Biometric Voter Registration and Verification and was optimistic that the process would eliminate the previous challenges such as bloated registers that led to double voting.

Dr Afari-Gyan maintained that while it was critical to ensure vigilance and high security throughout the Biometric Voters' Registration and Verification processes, it was important that parents observed high standards of integrity, honesty and sincerity in respect to the provision of biometric information on their wards, especially in respect to their ages.

Comparing Ghana's situation to that of Nigeria, which had already conducted a successful election using the Biometric Voting system, Dr Afari-Gyan said Ghana intended to devote 40 days to register about 12 million eligible voters, compared to Nigeria, which used 23 days to register 73.5 million voters as it had only 7,000 equipment for the registration process and therefore had to rotate them to cover all the 119,973 polling units across the country.

He said EC had therefore, grouped the country into four clusters of polling stations and would be spending 10 days in each cluster to register all eligible voters, while provision had been made for the physically challenged to ensure that no person was disenfranchised.

However, Dr Afari-Gyan enumerated challenges in respect to technology and difficulties in transferring logistics to remote areas of the country during the voting day.

He said the Commission had built a Data Recovery Centre to keep back-ups of all data for safety and a Central Search which was a system to cross check data submitted daily from all the Regions and Districts with would be via satellite to eliminate double registration.

Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria, encouraged Ghana to forge ahead  with her option for a Biometric Voter Registration System and Verification process, saying although the system was costly, complicated and required huge logistical deployment and close details in order to capture credible data of eligible voters, it was achievable and worthwhile.

He said although it might be the first time Ghana would be using a biometric voters' registration for elections, the system had been tried and tested in other African countries such as Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Nigeria, but many had still raised doubts about Ghana's EC's capability to complete the exercise in time for Election 2012.

Prof Jega said although Nigeria had her own challenges in terms of funding, technology, logistics supply and data segregation in terms of the scale of the population, she also had to deal with, training of officials and security, but was able to prevail at the end with a successful electioneering process and a quick declaration of election results.

Source: GNA

    

 

USAG Launch Peace Project For Election 2012

Friday, 02 March 2012 07:59

The University Students Association of Ghana (USAG) has launched a peace project aimed at involving the youth to play active roles in ensuring successful elections in 2012. The project dubbed "Peaceful 2012 Elections-Role of the Youth" will come out with modalities on how university students nationwide will play active roles in safeguarding the country's security and stability. It is being managed by EventComm Ghana Limited, an event management company and will begin in March and end in November. Apostle Dr. Opoku Onyinah, Chairman, Church of Pentecost speaking at the launch, lauded the crucial role Ghana has played in ensuring that not all countries on the African continent are affected by conflicts saying "Ghana has taken the lead to let the world know that Africa is not a dark continent as some people perceive". He appealed to politicians and Ghanaians to guard their utterances as provocative statements can cause chaos in the country. Apostle Onyinah who is also a member of National Peace Council, lauded the role peace plays in the developmental process of countries to attract investment. "All over the world, countries use hard earned cash to buy huge stockpiles of ammunitions which they might never use," he said. Mr Kingsley Baffoe, National President of USAG, said the project will create the platform through which stakeholders of peace will have the opportunity to operate in an objective and practical manner saying "the programme is mainly targeted at the youth. However, the general public of all social class and stature would also be reached with the message of peace". Some activities under the project include seminars in all the 10 Regions, peace walk, peace ambassadorial pageant, courtesy call on opinion leaders, interaction with the Electoral Commission and security agencies. Others are interactions with ordinary citizens, public shows of civil war documentaries and free distribution of such videos on Compact Discs. Mr Baffoe appealed to corporate entities to assist USAG financially to undertake the project effectively. Lieutenant Rita Anane of the Ghana Armed Forces pledged the readiness of the Army to provide USAG with footages on the effect of wars in some African countries during their sensitisation programmes. She urged USAG to concentrate their programmes in the rural areas where the youth are usually recruited to cause mayhem. Source: GNA