IPAC no more relevant to us- NDC

The Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), according to the General Secretary of the opposition political party, National Democratic Congress (NDC); Johnson Asiedu Nketsia, has lost its significance, hence their decision to boycott the IPAC meeting held yesterday.

The senior politician argues the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission Jean Mensah and her ‘group’ have since acted in breach of protocols that underpine the ideologies that established IPAC.

He said “there was a reason why IPAC was established. It was established out of the belief that electoral rules are best established through consensus. So from 1994 to 2016, all the reforms we have undertaken as a country had their origin from IPAC deliberations. So whenever we making any law that governs elections, we have IPAC committees, technical committees, legal committees that will help in the drafting, bring it to IPAC for us to agree before its sent to parliament enactment. That is why many of our laws when they find themselves in parliament, the debate is very minimal because the debate actually happens between the stakeholders at IPAC”

Johnson Asiedu Nketsiah who is popularly known as General Mosquito remarked that the rather consensus building that influenced electoral reforms in the country has been defiled by the current leadership of the electoral commission, making it practically irrelevant to participate in any discourse or agenda the they [EC] presents to the political parties.

“Now you have an IPAC where you go and then Electoral Commission comes to announce what they propose to do, and then whatever you say is just overboard. Nobody takes any suggestions from any political party” he fired.

The Peoples National Convention (PNC) also walked out of the IPAC meeting yesterday. Both parties have since protested the compilation of a new voter register.

The venue where the meeting was held yesterday was filled with heavy security presence, one that some Ghanains felt was intimating.