The Greater Accra Regional Office of the Electoral Commission (EC) will by June this year relocate to its new office located at Amasaman in the Ga West municipality. The commission will also begin to use the national warehouse built at the same location, to keep and manage logistics for the 2008 elections. The Director of Finance at the EC Headquarters, Mr Isaac Kwame Boateng, said the new location was convenient and strategic for the effective and efficient deployment of logistics nation-wide during elections on December 8, 2008. The building of a regional office and a national warehouse is part of the strategic 10-year plan of the EC that began in 1999 and will end this year. However, the contract for the construction of the Greater Accra Regional Office and the national warehouse with an initial cost of GH¢900,000, was awarded in June 2006 and it took a year and nine months to be completed. Mr Boateng said a warehouse for the storage of election logistics, a block of offices for the warehouse and a separate block of offices for administration had all been completed and would be handed over to the commission next month. He emphasised the mandate of the EC in managing and deploying election logistics, and said that was one of the key functions that went hand in hand with the appropriate infrastructure. The regional office in Wa has also been completed and, according to Mr Boateng, with its completion, as well as the Greater Accra Regional Office and national warehouse, the EC would focus on the building of another regional office. Currently, the EC has completed 12 district offices and has regional offices in Kumasi, Bolgatanga, Tamale and Ho, with the Accra and Wa offices being the latest additions. The 2008 budget statement of the government mentioned the completion of the regional offices in Wa and the Greater Accra Regions, as well as the national warehouse, as some of the infrastructural development activities for the EC this year. Others are the expansion of ICT infrastructure and the procurement of logistics and communication equipment in the completed district and regional offices. Source: Daily Graphic