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Ghana pushes for E-votingACCRA, Apr 07, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Ghanaian government announced here on Thursday that it would support the electoral commission to develop a biometric voter register in order to lay a strong foundation for e-voting in the country. The government said that the e-voting system would eliminate the incidence of multiple registrations, multiple voting and other kinds of electoral fraud in elections. Opening a two-day Microsoft Open Door Conference for West Africa here, Minister for Communications Haruna Iddrissu said the government wanted to ensure that there were credible elections in Ghana. "Electoral Commission (EC) has the fullest support of government to go biometric to lay the foundation for e-voting in Ghana," Iddrissu pledged. However, speaking to Xinhua via telephone, EC public affairs director Christian Owusu-Parry declared that Ghana was not ready for electronic voting. According to director, although the EC wanted a biometric register to ensure there was a credible voter roll, people's faith in polling and results could diminish with the elimination of physical ballot papers in the country. With illiteracy rate standing at 57.9 percent, Owusu-Parry believed that due to such a population mix, many voters might not accept electoral results declared by "a supposed machine" as people were used to witnessing the physical counting of ballot papers while all party representatives accepting the valid votes cast before results were declared. "A lot of education would be needed for people to understand and accept the concept before the introduction, so we won't introduce electronic voting any time soon," Owusu Parry declared. The communications minister also announced that the country was investing and would continue to invest heavily to provide Information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure so as to make Ghana the preferred destination for business process outsourcing (BPO). By July this year, work on a BPO center would start at the cost of five million US dollars to deal with the complaint of real estate cost that had become a major set-back for most investors in the country, Iddrissu announced. He admitted that the major challenge for Ghana was the development of the requisite ICT professionals to be able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the infrastructure being developed in the country. In this respect, Iddrissu announced that government was in the process of developing core Information Technology (IT) professionals in the public service. He said that there had been the problem of career progression and level placement for the various levels of IT professionals in the public service. Iddrissu disclosed that government had set up a committee to establish clear modalities for placing IT professionals on their own levels in the public service. |