Chief Information Technology Officer at the University of Ghana Computing Systems (UGCS), Francis Boachie says the directorate is ready to conduct this year’s University of Ghana Student Representative Council elections.
Speaking on our morning show Campus Exclusive on Monday October 24, 2022, Mr. Boachie assured students and stakeholders of a transparent system that would be devoid of any electoral malpractice.
He stated that;
This is a software that we have used over the years. It is a system that was built mainly for electioneering purpose, and we’ve proved that it works.
Other students bodies have used it and that is what has been made available for the commissioner to run the elections. All the security concerns has been made, and there again we have opened up to the candidates monitoring agent to also have a view. We have set up a monitoring room.
He also added that UGCS is opened to any conversations that might come up regarding the credibility of the system.
We are open to any discussion that will come up, if we have to deal with any issues. But so far, this has being used over and over and it has been working and at anything time we have used it, any concerns that comes up we have sorted it out, so I don’t foresee any issues.
We are making sure that our system is well protected based of cybersecurity credentials and all the things we need to do.
Mr. Boachie also revealed that the directorate rescinded their earlier stance not to run this year’s election after engagements with management of the school.
According to Mr. Boachie, although UGCS had vowed not to conduct UGSRC elections again due to the backlash they received in 2021 for delaying in the release of the provisional results ,they rescinded their decision after the intervention of the school’s management.
Only a fool will not change his mind, this was call from the university management and we had to heed to it.
In the 2021 SRC election, a section of the students populace called out the UGCS for delaying to announce the results of the online elections when in actual fact, the electoral commissioners were those who had access.
Students at the University of Ghana are expected to head to the polls tomorrow Tuesday, October 25, 2022 to elect a new crop of SRC executives for the 2022/2023 academic year.
The elections are expected to take place online with assistance by the University of Ghana Computing Systems.
