The Electoral Commission (EC) is in the process of setting up a committee that will come out with regulations and modalities for the implementation of the Representation of the People Amendment Law (ROPAL).The committee will comprise representatives of political parties.Currently, political parties have been asked to submit the names of their representatives to the committee, which would be chaired by the EC.ROPAL allows Ghanaians living abroad to exercise their franchise in general elections conducted in Ghana.A Deputy Chairman of the EC, Mr Kwadwo Safo Kantanka who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, said whether the ROPAL would be used in the 2012 election would depend on the completion of the modalities and regulations.On February 24, 2006 Parliament passed the Representation of the People's Amendment Bill (ROPAB) during one of the most eventful sessions in the country's parliamentary history.On exactly when it would be used, Mr Kantanka indicated that "it is not useful to put a time limit on it, because our focus is not when it would be implemented. It depends on when the regulations are completed and accepted. We are not doing it because of 2012."According to Mr Kantanka, the EC had visited and interacted with officials of countries including Philippines, Netherlands South Africa, Botswana and Mali whose citizens lived in foreign lands and cast their votes to learn at firsthand how they went about it.He said once the law on ROPAL had been passed by Parliament and assented to by the President, the EC, as the implementing body, was obliged to make the necessary regulation for its implementation.The General Secretaries of the People's National Convention (PNC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Mornah and Mr Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie corroborated the story.They noted that the decision to submit names of their representatives to the committee was taken at a meeting of the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), a body of all registered political parties that interacts with the EC on issues concerning elections in the country.In a State of the Nation Address on January 31, 2006, the former President, J. A. Kufuor, declared the readiness of the government to push ahead with the passage of the ROPAB which had generated some nervousness among sections of the population.The need to extend the ballot box to Ghanaians abroad was contained in the 1996 State of the Nation Address delivered by former President J.J. Rawlings.Prior to the passage of the bill into law, the then Minority boycotted proceedings of the House in protest against what they termed "the wanton and flagrant disrespect of minority rights".Some members of political parties, particularly the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the People's National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People's Party (CPP) kicked against the passage of the bill, claiming that it was a recipe for disaster.Source: Daily Graphic