Electoral Officers who would flout the laws of the impending December 7 general elections would upon conviction be fined Gh¢6,000.00 or serve two years in prison as contained in the recently passed Public Elections Regulations, 2016, Constitutional Instrument (CI 94).
The new law unlike the CI 75 which regulated the 2012 elections prescribes sanctions against officials plotting to commit offences in the upcoming polls.
Member of Parliament for Akuapim South, Osei Bonsu Amoah made the revelation when he appeared as a guest on Accra-based Oman fm’s new program ‘Elections Reference Centre’ last Saturday where he stressed that would be electoral officers must be cautioned against flouting the new regulations lest they faced a jail term.
“For me, the most important thing in this new CI is where such officers are prosecuted and jailed. It would put some fear in such persons. The EC must adequately educate such officers about the consequences of flouting these laws”, he stated.
Another panel on the program, Dr. Osei Bonsu, a Lecturer at the Methodist University College also said “the punitive part of the regulation would sanitize the system since no one wants to go to jail”
He however was concerned about the seeming lack of broad public education on the content of the CI94 saying “what is the use of keeping the contents of such good laws from the people? The political parties must move into action and educate the electorate on what the CI94 says”
Regulation 44 (2) of CI 94 stipulates that “An election officer who is required to perform a function under these Regulations but fails to perform that function, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than five hundred penalty units or to a term of imprisonment of not more than two years or both, and shall for a period of five years from the date of the expiration of the term of imprisonment be disqualified from being engaged as an election officer.”
The Akuapim South MP explained that “a penalty unit is currently Ghc12.00, meaning a convicted election officer fined a maximum of 500 penalty units will cough up Ghc6,000.00”.
According to CI 94, the provisions in relation to election offences specified in the Representation of the People Act, 1992 (PNDCL 284) also apply to these Regulations.
Under the CI75 law there was no punishment for presiding officers who committed errors or electoral offences, a situation critics believe was responsible for the many transposition errors committed in the 2012 elections as witnessed in the Supreme Court during the election petition hearing.
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