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Dr Bossman Eric Asare – Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of General Services
The Electoral Commission (EC) began consultations with strategic countries on Monday to implement the Law on the Representation of the People (Amendment No. 699) of 2006, which grants Ghanaians the diaspora the right to vote abroad.
As part of its mandate, the EC ROPAA Committee will invite the Senegalese Electoral Commission, the Ghanaian community in Senegal and other strategic institutions in Senegal to share their ideas and solicit their views on the situation. law application.
A team of eight ROPAA EC committee members led by Dr. Bossman Eric Asare, EC Vice President, Corporate Services; Mr. Samuel Tettey, Vice President, Operations; and Professor Ransford Gyampo of the University of Ghana.
representations
The others are Mr. John Boadu, Secretary General of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), representing the party in power; Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Mr. Kofi Akpaloo, Founder and Leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana (GPL), representing the other minority parties without representation in Parliament.
The other members are: Mr Christian Owusu-Parry, Secretary of the ROPAA Committee, and Ms Sylvia Annor of the EC.
However, Reverend Ernest Adu Gyamfi of the National Peace Council and Dr. Kojo Asante of Ghana's Center for Democratic Development (CDD) were able to attend the ROPAA consultation in Dakar.
Dr. Bossman Asare told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Dakar, Senegal, that this law gave the EC responsibility for making arrangements for the implementation of the ROPAA.
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"By complying with the legal obligation, the Commission has set up a subcommittee to make recommendations on how best to implement the ROPAA," he said.
He added that the Committee organized regional consultation programs with local stakeholders and civil society organizations, representatives of political parties, traditional authorities, religious leaders and the media.
In the meantime, Jean Mensa, President of the European Commission, explained that the implementation of the ROPAA required the Commission to draw up a regulation in the form of a constitutional instrument governing the registration of voters and elections in foreign countries.
Ms Mensa stated that at the end of the work of the ROPAA Advisory and Implementation Committee, a technical group would be set up to draft rules for the external vote, and then Parliament would forward it to an ICP. here at the end of December 2019.
The journey up to now
The President of the European Commission said that the ROPAA now gives Ghanaians living outside the country the right to be registered and vote where they live.
"It has been more than 12 years since the ROPAA came into effect, but Ghanaian citizens living abroad do not yet benefit from the opportunities offered by the ROPAA.
"It is because of the obvious challenges that the implementation of the ROPAA is likely to pose," she said.
Ms. Mensa recalled that in the past, the EC, under the leadership of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, had been trying to find a way to implement the ROPAA in an acceptable way for all stakeholders by putting in place, in 2011, a committee Implementation of the ROPAA.
"Eight years later, the right to be registered and vote in elections and public referendums remains inaccessible to Ghanaians living outside Ghana," she said.
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change
Ms. Mensa said that a lot has changed since the committee set up by Dr. Afari-Gyan presented his report; stating that it was necessary that in trying to implement the ROPAA now, stakeholders take into account the new developments of the electoral process in Ghana.
It will be recalled that, as a result of the lobbying of interest groups, a bill was introduced in Parliament in 2006, the People's Amendment Amendment Bill (ROPAB), which sought to change the representation of the People's Law of 1992 on Law 284 of the PDNC.
PNDC Law 284 did not provide for Ghanaian citizens working in Ghana's diplomatic missions, persons working with international organizations of which Ghana is a member, and Ghanaian students registered in the countries in which they reside to be registered.
The ROPAA, Law 2006, ACT 699 was therefore adopted to extend the right of Ghanaians living outside the country to participate in the vote in elections and public referendums.
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