Political parties have been warned against registering ‘unqualified and ineligible’ persons in the ongoing voters registration exercise.
Making the call during the second of this year’s series of the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) media engagement dubbed “Let The Citizen Know” yesterday at the EC’s headquarters in Accra, Deputy Chairman of the Commission in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Bossman Asare, said political parties as key stakeholders must support the EC to ensure a credible voters register.
“We are stressing on this because we continue to hear of reports from our officers on the ground and see pictures/videos from the districts of minors and other unqualified persons taking part in the registration exercise. This must stop, and the parties, the media and CSOs must support the EC to ensure that the proposed CI is passed,” he charged.
On the registration figures so far (from day to day 16), he said both the Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions continue to lead the way nominally.
He explained that this was expected because these were the two most populous regions in our country.
“These are the figures for the regions so far: Western, 42,269 (6.3%), Western North, 22,386 (3.3%), Central, 63,228 (9.4%), Greater Accra, 90,099 (13.4%), Volta, 43,099 (6.4%), Oti, 18,468 (2.7%), Eastern, 69,597 (10.36%), and Ashanti, 111.593 (16.6%).
The rest, he revealed are, Bono, 23,365 (3.5%), Ahafo, 17,210 (2.6%), Bono East, 28,687 (4.3%), Savannah, 16,045 (2.4%), Northern, 52,410 (7.8%), North East, 17,692 (2.6%), Upper East, 33,778 (5.0%), and Upper West, 23,350 (3.5%), adding that the national total registered voters during the period is 673,276
He used the opportunity to call on the government to, as a matter of urgency, provide the necessary support to the National Identification Authority (NIA) to register all qualified persons ahead of the registration exercise next year.
“As Ghanaians we have the responsibility to protect our democracy. The Electoral Commission strongly believes that having a voter register with only qualified persons is very central to protecting the country’s democracy. We will carry out registration exercise in our district offices and selected electoral areas next year, and we anticipate that all qualified applicants will have their Ghana cards to present as evidence of their ages and nationality,” he said.
According to Dr Bossman, this was third week of the registration exercise, adding that the EC has not received any reports of shortages of any of the registration materials from any of our registration centres.
Consequently, he gave the assurance that the commission will continuously engage its officials in the regions to protect the rights of all eligible citizens who want to register.
Similarly, he indicated that the EC will continue to strengthen its processes to ensure that ineligible persons including minors and foreigners do not register.
“As a Commission, we are focused on ensuring and maintaining the credibility of the voters register,” he averred.
He said it was against the backdrop of the above that the proposed new CI which will require the use of the Ghana Card as the only means of identification for new applicants to register as voters.
“Indeed the Ghana card shows the age and citizenship of the bearer of the card making it easier to identify those who are minors and those who are foreigners.”
“The Commission believes that the guarantor system has outlived its usefulness, and we are convinced that the time is right for a system that every registrant is identified on his/her own merit rather than another person vouching for the age and nationality of that person,” he said
