By: Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Majority in Parliament has backed the Electoral Commission describing the pending Constitutional Instrument (CI) as good for the progressive match of the country’s electoral reforms.
According to the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business, using the national identification card popularly called Ghana card, is coming to sanitize the system through its “robust nature” for continued voter registration exercise in the country.
At a Press conference on 2nd March, 2023 to support the EC’s position and to also respond to some of concerns raised by the Minority during their earlier press conference to oppose the CI , claiming that, when passed, it would disenfranchised some Ghanaians who do not have the Ghana Card, Mr Osei kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said, it has been always the mandate of electoral commission to improve Ghana’s electoral systems as done previously, Dr Afari Gyan and Charlotte Osei all did it, is same system improving activities which the current E.C is seeking to do with the new C.I to accept only the Ghana card as the sole document for the acquisition of voters’ ID.
Majority leader explained that, previously, people who used the various forms of IDs, such baptismal certificates, national health insurance IDs, Passport and others managed their way through to use fraudulent documents to register themselves into the system but the current NIA systems are capable of stopping all those fraudulent activities in order to have a credible national ID.
Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has already given the assurance to Parliament that additional funds will be released to NIA to continue with its job as he disclosed that GHC80 million out of the required GHC100 million has already been given whilst the remaining GHC20 million cedis would also be settled before close of this week.
The said C.I, the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Instrument, 2022, seeks to make the Ghana Card the sole document for the registration of voters onto Ghana’s electoral roll and to also do away with the guarantor system.
