Photo: Is the EC website still down For about 5 Month Now? Watch what you see when you log on.

The official website of Ghana’s Electoral Commission has been down for the past 5 month and has since been out of operation and it looks like nothing is been done.

For the last past five month users and visitors to the domain www.ec.gov.gh are greed with a blank statement. There is no notice whatsoever on the site informing visitors of whatever challenges being experienced on the website as is the norm in instances of technical or development issues.

The Commission’s website, which was launched in years ago as part of the EC’s five-year strategic plan, has a database of most of Ghana’s elections from 1992 to 2016, the number of people on the voters’ register and the number of constituencies as well as other relevant electoral information.

The website has been a reference point of some key credible sources of information for users and journalists.

Background

Procurement issues, relating to the redesigning and maintenance of the website were found by the Chief Justice’s committee which heard the petition for the removal of former EC Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, were some of the reasons for her removal from office.

The CJ’s committee found that two contracts totaling $108, 510 dollars – $32,510 for re-designing and $76,000 for maintenance – were unilaterally awarded to DreamOval Ltd by Charlotte Osei in breach of procurement laws.

“As a result, an initial contract for the sum of US$32,510.00 was awarded to Dreamoval Ltd. to re-design a website for the Electoral Commission…

“Accordingly, the Chairperson executed another contract with DreamOval Ltd to enable USAID pay the extra bill of US$76,000.00…”

From the evidence, Mrs. Charlotte Osei failed to adhere to the procurement procedure sanctioned by the Public Procurement Act and the Electoral Commission’s own internal procurement structures “, portions of the committee’s findings