EC to create new register that costs $80m – Haruna Iddrisu alleges
EC denies claims it wants to compile a new Voter Register
The General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has stated that the minority caucus in Parliament will withhold the budgetary allocation to the Electoral Commission (EC) if it insists on using only the GhanaCard to register new voters for the 2024 election.
Asiedu Nketia said that the minority will be denying the EC funding because the commission is aware that a lot of Ghanaians do not have the National Identification Card (GhanaCard) but the commission is insisting that the card will be the only primary document to register new voters.
According to him, the minority MPs will rather transfer the funds the EC will be using for the Voters Register to the National Identification Authority (NIA) so that more Ghanaians can get their GhanaCard.
“We all see a lot of Ghanaians crowded at NIA registration centres. They (the EC) are aware that the GhanaCard do not have universal coverage but they still want to use it. The fact that they have decided that they are going to use only the GhanaCard (to register) has also made us take a decision.
“There will certainly be a budget for the Electoral Commission. If they insist on doing something that not all the parties agree on, we will withhold their funding or divert the funding to NIA for them to ensure that every Ghanaian has a GhanaCard. If Parliament does not give them the funds will they be able to do the registration?,” he said in Twi in an XYZ interview monitored by GhanaWeb.
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu while addressing the media at Parliament, claimed that the EC is seeking to compile another voters register with the base document being the new Ghana card.
According to him, his outfit will kick against such moves by the Commission because the new register is a wasteful expenditure and will disenfranchise a lot of Ghanaians who have not registered or secured their Ghana cards yet.
The EC has, however, dismissed the claims that it intends to compile a new Voters' Register for the 2024 election.
"Indeed the 2020 Voters’ Register came at a cost so I don’t think anyone at the Electoral Commission will say they want to discard the register. I can assure you that it is the best register ever compiled by the commission; so we have confidence in the register and we will never dispose of it," the Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe said in an interview with Peace FM.
Watch the interview below:
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