Sydney Casely-Hayford, a member of OccupyGhana, believes the Electoral Commission’s (EC) compilation of a new voters’ register is needed to finally clean the electoral roll.
Speaking on The Big Issue, he argued that the integrity of the data was “the most critical thing” in the argument over whether a new register was needed.
“This is a serious opportunity for us to once and for all get the data in that register corrected because there are too many things that have gone wrong,” the social commentator stated.
Mr. Casely-Hayford said he did not think the current register was clean despite the Supreme Court order in 2016 to remove the names of persons who registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards after a 2014 lawsuit by Abu Ramadan.
There were concerns that there were names of foreigners in the register because non-Ghanaians have access to the NHIS card.
The EC eventually removed 56,000 names from the register in line with the order.
But because the NHIA card is a popular mode of identification, Mr. Casely-Hayford said: “there is a lot of likelihood that we still have people on the voters registered with an NHIA card.”
“That case wasn’t dealt with thoroughly enough and there should have been more people but it looks like we had a political compromise,” he added.
Concerns over integrity of current register
Back in 2016, observers like IMANI expressed doubts with the EC’s claim that only 56,000 Ghanaians were captured onto the voters’ register using the NHIS card as proof of Ghanaian citizenship ahead of the 2012 elections.
Pressure group Let My Vote Count Alliance had suggested that the there were 4 million people on the roll which used NHIS cards for registration.
The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers also suggested that such data was going to be difficult to collate, and questioned how the EC could meet the six-day deadline given it at the time.
New register plans
The EC plans to abandon its current biometric verification system and procure a new one which has a facial recognition technology hence the need for the new voters’ register.
It also wants to replace outmoded biometric machines to better address verification challenges that could occur.
Parliament has approved about GHS390 million for the EC to procure the new biometric system despite opposition from civil society and some political parties.
The EC has however said it is ready to engage the various political parties at odds with its plans.
The registration exercise will take place between April and May 2020 over a period of 50 days.
Source: citinewsroom
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THERE SHOULD BE AN URGENT CORDINATION BETWEEN NIA AND EC SO THAT GHANA CARD IS USED FOR THE ELECTORAL REGISTER. WHAT IS THE SENSEEEE TO ACQUIRING NEW EQUIPEMENT TO START NEW REGISTRATION FOR ELECTION. AT WORST ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT AND PERSONNEL SHOULD BE GRANTED TO NIA TO WORK FASTER TO COMPLETE ITS WORK. MY GOD. IS ANYBODY THINKING IN GHANA, I AM SORRY. WHAT A WASTE SOCIETY. HOW CAN WE GROW WHEN WE DONT HAVE VALUE FOR MONEY. WE WASTE SO MUCH FOR NOTHING. YES, EC MAY SAVE A LOT OF MONEY BY NEW EQUIPEMENT FOR NEW REGISTER BUT THAT CANNOT BE BETTER THAN SUPPORTING NIA TO PROVIDE THE DATA BASE TO BE EXTRACTED FOR EC REGISTER. THE LATTER MAY COST ALMOST NOTHING. PLEASE, DEAR EMINENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE, DO SOMETHING TO SAVE THE NATIONS THE COST FOR NEW EQUIPMENT FOR NEW REGISTER. CALL TOGETHER THE EC TECHNICIANS AND GHANAIAN TECHNICIANS AT HOME AND ABROAD WHO CAN HELP TO MAKE NIA DATA BASE AVAILABLE AND APPLICABLE FOR 2020 ELECTIONS. GHANA CARD CANNOT HAVE ANY BETTER IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER THAN TO BE USE FOR ELECTIONS. WHATEVER PROBLEMS NIA HAVE NOW CANNOT BE WORSE THAN WHAT A NEW REGISTRATION CARD FOR ELECTION MAY HAVE. ANY PROBLEM FOR GHANA CARD TODAY CAN BE RESOLVE FASTER AND BETTER THAN THE UNKNOWN PROBLEM THAT NEW ELECTORAL REGISTRATION CARD MAY CAUSE. IN FACT IF A NEW CARD IS MADE FOR ELECTION MANY PEOPLE MAY NOT FIND IT IMPORTANCE TO COLLECT THEIR GHANA CARD FROM NIA, ANOTHER WASTE. THOUGH THE PRODUCTION AND ACQUISITION OF GHANA CARD HAS NO TIME BOUND A DEADLINE CAN BE SET TO SEAL THE DATE FOR THE EXTRACTION OF THE ELECTORAL REGISTER. EAC MUST HELP TO BRING ALL RELATED TECHNICAL MINDS OF EC, NIA AND OTHER GHANAIANS EITHER HOME AND ABROAD TOGETHER TO FORMULATE WHAT IS NEEDED TO ACCOMPLISH A CREDIBLE ELECTIONS. THEIR FINDINGS AND PROPOSALS MUST BE BROUGHT BEFORE EC, POLITICAL PARTIES, CIVIL SOCIETIES IN A SHORT POSSIBLE TIME. THOUGH THIS IS NOT IMAGINED, WHEN ALL BECOME INVOLVED WE CANNOT BLAME EC FOR ANY DELAY SHOULD IN CASE IT HAPPENS SO BECAUSE THIS IS GHANA PROJECT AND NOT ONLY EC PROJECT. WE WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR GHANA AT A REASONABLE MINIMUM COST. THE EARLY WE START WORKING TOGETHER THE BETTER IT IS FOR ALL OF US. ONE MAY ASK WHY SHOULD WE DO ALL THIS ONLY WHEN NPP IS IN GOVERNMENT AND NOT NDC WHO IS ALWAYS ALLOWED TO HAVE A FIELD DAY? MY ANSWER IS THAT AS PARENTS WE ADVICE OOR CHILDREN WHO TAKE ADVISE. WE DON'T WASTE OUR TIME ON THOSE WHO DO NOT APPRECIATE THE VALUE FOR REASONING. NPP MUST ALSO KNOW THAT THEY ARE DOING ALL FOR GHANA AND THEY MUST GIVE WHAT IS THE BEST TO THE FUTURE GENERATION WHETHER THEY ARE IN POWER OR NOT. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNREWARDED. WE NEVER HEARD OF EAC DURING NDC TIME BUT NPP IN THEIR WISDOM HAVE ESTABLISHED IT. WE MUST SUPPORT IT TO WORK FOR ALL.