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The Minority caucus in Parliament has expressed worry and disappointment about the decision by the Electoral Commission to phase out registration exercise in 6,300 centres out of the total of 33,367 registration centres across the country.

Minority Leader, Hon Haruna Iddrisu spoke to Journalists at Parliament House about the issue just after the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa met the Special Budget Committee of Parliament Tuesday morning, to brief the Committee about its preparation towards the December 7 election.

Haruna Iddrisu said phasing out the registration exercise in 6,300 registration centres will breach article 42 of the Constitution which guarantees the legitimate right of citizens.

The Minority Leader further said "the EC Chairperson told the Special Budget Committee it does not intend to use data of the National Identification Authority (NIA) but will use it only for purpose of identity".
 
He said the "Minority feels very concerned about the future" of the registration exercise.

He said the NDC is still opposed to the decision by the EC to compile a new voters' register as the Minority and the NDC see no legal and technical justification for the compilation of a new voters' register for the December 7 election.

Registration Exercise

The Electoral Commission has written to political parties to inform them of the impending voter registration scheduled to begin on June 30, 2020.

A letter signed by the Deputy Chairman, Corporate Services, Dr. Bossman E. Asare to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) said "This letter comes to inform you that the 2020 Voters Registration Exercise has been scheduled to commence on Tuesday, the 30th of June, 2020. The registration will be held at all Registration Centres and District Offices of the Electoral Commission throughout the country."

EC Budget

Parliament approved the over GHS 390 million budget the Electoral Commission needs to compile the new voters' register ahead of the polls in December 2020.

Documents provided indicate that the EC’s budget will be spent on procurement, recruitment, training, data processing, publicity and allowances.

The EC’s Head of Communications, Sylvia Annor said the Commission has provided enough evidence and defense to support their claims for the budget.

“The Electoral Commission has given certain figures to back the argument that we are raising. When we are talking about cost, in 2017, during the limited registration exercise, we spent GHC 487,980,714.

"Now the 2020 registration is expected to cost GHC 390, 265, 486 which is even cheaper than the limited registration conducted in 2016. And when you talk about the obsolete nature of the system, we spent 2 million ghana cedis to refurbish the old system and the vendor indicated in the report that going forward, we either need to acquire a new system and the upgrade was going to cost us more,” she said.

The break down of the GHS 390 million budget is as follows; Parliament approved GHS1.3 billion for the Electoral Commissions activities for the year, as compared to the GHS 1.8 billion approved in 2016.

Also, more than GHS161 million will be spent on an official who will undertake the registration exercise as allowance and GHS 156 million is expected to be the cost of procurement materials.