Care for Free and Fair Elections Ghana has called on the Auditor-General to conduct a forensic audit of the accounts of the Electoral Commission (EC) to authenticate and validate the Commission’s claim of saving the country $90 million in the 2020 elections.

Mrs Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the EC, recently made the claim at the 2021 ECOWAS Parliamentary Seminar held in Winneba in the Central Region.

“Our request has become necessary because, at every given opportunity, the Electoral Commission is always in a haste to announce how much the Commission has saved Ghana in the conduct of the 2020 general elections. However, given the controversies that the EC was engulfed with particularly regarding its procurement processes, it would be in the interest of the Commission and the nation at large to conduct a forensic audit of EC’s accounts so as to ascertain or otherwise the veracity of $90 million cost-saving claims among others,” CARE GHANA said in a statement.

CARE GHANA noted that it does not want to believe that the Commission is “engaged in some self-serving aggrandisement.”

“If, indeed, the Commission saved the nation the amount per its claim, then, of course, it deserves commendation and CARE GHANA would not hesitate so to do”.

“It is the reason we are calling for this forensic audit so that the public interest would be better served,” the statement stated.

Prior to any of such forensic audit, CARE GHANA is also calling on the Electoral Commission, as a matter of accountability and transparency, to publish a preliminary report detailing the cost of registration, cost of exhibition, cost of printing, cost of BVRs, cost of voting materials, cost of printing, cost of transporting electoral materials and personnel and the cost of hiring temporal staff and engaging consultants in the 2020 elections to sustain its claim.

The group believes it will establish the legitimacy of the claim and enhance the credibility and confidence the public should repose in the Commission.