President of Policy think tank Imani Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, says but for the financial commitments that the Electoral Commission (EC) has to deal with ahead of the elections in November, its decision to acquire a new logo, should not be a big deal.
Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis and current affairs programme, ‘The Big Issue’, Mr. Cudjoe said the brouhaha over the new logo, is largely due to the fact that it’s an election year.
The new logo, a blue rounded crest with patches of white, yellow, red and green, has been described by some of the journalists as childish and inappropriate.
The critics were of the view the logo does not reflect the work of the commission and that the current one rather communicates better what the commission stands for.
The current Logo has a black star in between two eagles at both sides of a shield, with a hand in the middle casting a ballot, which gives one an idea of what the Commission does. It also has the inscription ‘Transparency, Fairness, Integrity. The new one however has none of these features.
But Mr. Franklin Cudjoe believes the commission’s decision was ill-timed. “You can’t budget for something when you’ve not procured the services. We don’t know what all of this means then all of a sudden we hear logos.
"These institutions have to protect themselves. This may not necessarily be a big issue but in an election year, with all the challenges you have, this is not on,” he said.
The issue of the EC’s new logo came up when some journalists criticized the commission because they thought the new logo does not represent anything Ghanaian or explain the functions of the commission.
Some have also suggested that the logo is not original, and that it may have been copied from the internet, since a replica of it have been found to be used by some NGOs around the world.
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