Ghana’s Electoral Commission, according to Asante Akyem Central Member of Parliament Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, should undertake a nationwide validation exercise to weed out ineligible persons on the poll roll if it is to fully comply with a recent Supreme Court directive to do so.
Ghana’s highest court ordered on May 5 that in addition to minors, aliens, and deceased persons, names of all persons who made it onto the country’s voter roll by presenting National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) identification cards to the EC, as evidence of their nationality, should be expunged.
But the court, having earlier ruled in 2014 that NHIS cards were not sufficient proof of citizenship, for which reason it could not be proffered for registration, held that the EC should delete such names.
The EC has emerged to say its interpretation of the ruling does not mandate them to delete the names of such affected persons, in addition to the fact that there is no law in place guiding how that should be done.
But the legislator thinks the EC’s posture is a smoke screen to conceal its failure to capture information on the type of ID cards voters presented back in 2012 during registration.
He said on Accra FM on Friday May 27 that: “I can see that they do not have that data because at the time all they asked for was one’s ID card. There were no entries about the ID card [type] – whether they were driver’s licences or National ID cards or passports. So, the EC will find it difficult getting that data. Even if they are there, I do not think they keyed it into their computer. So, they would have to go back and check each form.”
In his opinion, the EC, in addition to its inability to produce the registration forms of NHIS card registrants, was behind schedule in the elections and would, thus, not be in a position to conduct fresh registrations.
A way out for the election management body, Mr Anyimadu-Antwi offered, was to resort to validation, which will enable it to comprehensively get rid of ineligible persons on the electoral roll in one process.
“I believe the EC has got itself entangled, so, it should carry out a validation exercise and wriggle out of the mess,” he concluded.
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