Opinion
Alliance For New Register Rallies Support For Electoral Commission
The needles demonstrations by the National Democratic Congress(NDC) and it’s allies against the New Voters Register would amount to nothing.
Those against the compilation of a New Voters Register have no case, their arguments are not logically sound and coherent.
1. Timelines
The Electoral Commission under the NDC administration in 2012 compiled a New Voters Register between the period of April to May.
That same year the Electoral Commission created additional 45 Constituencies bringing the total to 275 for the 2012 General Elections.
If NDC supported the timelines for New Voters Register in 2012, an election year, why are they now complaining about the same timelines in 2020? This is pure hipocrisy and double standards.
2. Cost of 2020 New Voters Register
Charlotte Osei leading the EC under John Mahama’s administration spent GHC 487, 998, 714.00 for just a Limited Registration Exercise in 2016. That was completely waste of Public Funds.
Fast forward to 2020, Jean Mensa leading the EC under Akufo-Addo’s administration is spending Parliamentary approved budget of GHC 390, 265,186.44 for a completely New Voters Register ahead of the 2020 General Elections.
Jean Mensah led EC is rather saving monies for the Country as well as preventing us from the wastage of public funds.
3. EC cannot Depend on NIA for New Register
The Electoral Commission of Ghana cannot and should not rely on the Data from National Identification Authority (NIA) for the compilation of the New Voters Register.
The Ghana Card is not supported by any Law(LI or CI) for the conduct of an elections in Ghana.
There is no provisions in the NIA Act which gives its legal backing to use the Ghana Card for conduct of elections in Ghana.
The Ghana Card Registration was never done on the basis of Polling Stations unlike Electoral Commission whose Registration is done at the Polling Stations level across the Country.
As it stands now, the Ghana Card cannot be used for the purpose of 2020 general elections.
However, the compilation of the 2020 New Voters Register would help the Electoral Commission to:
1. Avoid the payment of over Four Hundred Million US Dollars as the annual maintenance fee for the EC Data Center.
2. Avoid the expensive payments for updating the obsolete Data Center, refurbishing of obsolete BVR Kits and upgrading of obsolete BVDs.
3. Successfully generate new Codes for the newly created Six (6) Regions including its polling stations and constitutiencies.
4. Successfully implement the ROPAL as ruled by the Supreme Court of Ghana.
5. Successfully blocks people who want to use NHIS Cards as Identify Card for Registration into the New Voters Register.
….Signed….
Razak Kojo Opoku
