2020 polls: EC to settle over GH¢100 million owed electoral officials

The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has announced that the process towards the payment of some Ghanaians who worked as electoral officials in the 2020 general elections is underway.

In a press release sighted by GhanaWeb, the Deputy EC Chair, Bossman Asare noted that the delay in payment of the affected officials was due to the incorrect bank details they submitted to the Commission.

He charged all regional directors and district officers to help correct these anomalies for the monies to be transferred to their accounts.

Bossman Asare stated that “the Commission has started the process towards the payment of the 2020 elections’ officials. However, some anomalies including incorrect bank details and names have been noticed that need to be corrected.”

“The Commission is falling on Regional Directors and District Officers to help correct the mistakes. Payment of officials will be made as soon as the anomalies are rectified,” he continued.

On Wednesday, March 24, 2021, some EC officials who worked as presiding officers, verification officers, name list reference officers, COVID ambassadors and ballot issuers during the 2020 general elections accused the EC of not paying them their allowances worth over GHC100 million.

Speaking on Asaase radio monitored by GhanaWeb, one of the presiding officers in the Oti region, Solomon Kumah stated that the affected officials were worried over the EC’s continued silence on the issue.

He added that no information has been communicated to them concerning their locked-up cash.

“Up till now, we have not heard any information as to whether they are going to pay us in the nearest possible time or not. Now we are in the dark, since January this year we have not heard any information from the Electoral Commission,” he said.

“It’s a bad situation in a way that you are expecting to be paid for a service being done and almost five months you hear nothing and you are not being told nothing at all, at least if there is a problem, we should know, so that when we are waiting, we wait with patience knowing that things will be fine but the silence is also killing us,” he continued.

Read EC’s statement below.