The Minority National Democratic Congress in Ghana’s Parliament has raised red flags over an alleged attempts by the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voters register with the Ghana Card as the only source document at the cost of 80 million dollars.
Addressing a press conference in Parliament House Tuesday morning, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu said the decision by the EC has a tendency to affect the stability of the country since most citizens who qualify but do not have the Ghana Card yet.
He described the compilation of a new register after just two years as a wasteful expenditure which will disenfranchise many Ghanaians and assured of his side’s readiness to kick against any such move.
“Our understanding as we pick it up is that the EC is desperately planning to discard the 2020 voters register and replace it with a new voter register, which will cause taxpayers and the people of Ghana 80 million dollars thereabout”, Mr Haruna stated.
He explained that data available at the national identification authority shows that, a total of Sixteen million, Three Hundred and Fourty One Thousand (16,341,000) people has been registered for the Ghana and out of this number, Thirteen million and Three Hundred thousand (13,300,000) cards has been issued so far.
The Tamale Central lawmaker added that, the electoral commission of Ghana currently has a total of about Seventeen million registered voters hence many Ghanaians who do not have the Ghana card would have a challenge getting themselves into the intended new register by the electoral commission.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu questioned the reasoning behind the electoral commission’s reluctance to allow the option of guarantors (where two registered Ghanaians witnessing for a person who does not have the required) to register into the intended voter register as it has been done in all exercises.
The Minority caucus accused the Jean Mensah led electoral Commission of committing sn illegality for failing to conduct limited voters registration exercises in 2021 and in this 2022 respectively whiles urging it to immediately abandoned any plans of compiling a new voters register.
