December Polls Will Go on as Planned Without Hitches – NCA Boss

By techfocus24 

March 21, 20240

A voter casts her ballot in Accra, Ghana, on Dec. 7, 2016. Ghana's general elections began from 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) on Wednesday, with more than 15 million registered voters casting their ballots at 29,000 polling stations across the country. (Xinhua/Shi Song)(gl)

The Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Dr. Joe Anokye has assured the public that potential internet disruptions will not compromise the integrity of the December 7 elections.

He attributed the disruptions to natural causes rather than any individual actions.

Dr. Anokye emphasised that the government has no intentions of interfering with the electoral process.

He attributed the disruptions to natural causes rather than any individual actions.

Dr. Anokye emphasised that the government has no intentions of interfering with the electoral process.

He expressed confidence in the independence of the Electoral Commission (EC), stating that they operate free from political influence.

Dr. Anokye urged Ghanaians to dismiss any assertions suggesting otherwise and to trust the government’s commitment to uphold fairness in the electoral process.

“That is completely not true if you understand how elections work, infact I believe one official of the EC even addressed this that on election day everything they do is manual. So there is no truth to that, the government won’t do that.”

Furthermore, Dr. Anokye provided insight into the difficulties encountered in identifying the cause of recent cuts in undersea fiber optic cables, crucial for internet connectivity in Ghana.

He clarified that, the significant distances between the four subsea cables pose a considerable challenge in determining the exact cause of the cuts.

“These 4 cables in Ivory Coast, Cote D’Ivoire, ACE, one of them is called Ace. That’s the one closer. it’s about 118km or so. Between that cable and the next cable is about 11 kilometres and just to put it in context, you know, 11 kilometres is from, like, you know, the general post office to Accra Mall.”

“The distance between that cable SAT-3 and the next cable, which is the main one, is allegedly to be about 67 kilometres, which is like from Accra Mall to Suhum. And all 3 were compromised. The distance between Main One and WACS, it’s also 77 kilometres. This is Suhum to Nkawkaw. So it is very difficult to determine exactly what happened,” he stated.

He was addressing allegations of government intentions to disrupt internet services on December 7.