By Iddi Yire/Elsie Appiah-Osei
Accra, April 1, GNA – The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary Majority and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority have reached a consensus to inform the Electoral Commission (EC) to consider adding the guarantor system for the registration of new voters.
This was after the House debated and adopted the report of the Committee of the Whole on the Draft Public Elections (Registration of Voters), Regulations, 2023 and other related matters.
The Committee of the Whole, under the Chairmanship of the Speaker of Parliament Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, held a meeting with the EC, the National Identification Authority (NIA), and the Ministry of Finance on the intention of the EC to introduce a revised Constitutional Instruments (CI), Public Election (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2023 and other related matters on electoral reforms as part of its preparation towards the 2024 General Election.
The meeting was at the instance of Parliament, as a follow-up on the recommendations of the Special Budget Committee after a pre-laying briefing by the EC on the proposed reforms as contained in a draft CI sought to be presented to the House by the EC.
The Special Budget Committee in its report, recommended to Parliament “to hold a meeting with the EC and the NIA to advance discussions on the new CI…and for the two institutions to give assurances to the House on the concerns identified during the briefing”.
The report of the Committee of the Whole said: “The Committee having thoroughly interrogated the issues and reforms being contemplated by the EC, would like to reiterate its support for any effort that would enable every Ghanaian to get Ghana Card because it is the law.”
“However, the Committee would like to stress that it would not accept and would reject any effort that is geared towards making the EC use the Ghana Card as the only medium to qualify a person who is eligible to vote in the 2024 elections.”
It said this was premised on the fact that indeed, Ghana had come of age and could boast of a credible national identification card (Ghana Card) to transact business with.
It said, however, even in the face of several identification options given in the past, and even in the operation of the NIA, some citizens were unable to register for the national card due to the existence of serious challenges the Authority was confronted with.
“It is clear that unless and until the challenges confronting the issuance of the Ghana Card are dealt with, using Ghana Card as the only medium of voter registration, would negatively impact on the electoral roll and thereby deny some otherwise qualified persons from registering to vote” the report stated.
The Committee of the Whole was emphatic in its position that this was not the time to introduce and implement the Ghana Card as the only means of identification of citizens for purposes of voter registration.
It urged the EC to tarry slowly until every eligible voter was allowed to register and procure the Ghana Card before the legislation of such compulsion.
The report recommended to the EC that a person who applied for registration but could not provide as evidence of an identification card issued by the NIA because the person had not been registered by the Authority or the person had been registered by the NIA but had not been issued with the national identification card; “that person shall be required by the Commission to produce a relative to provide evidence of identification on oath under the provisions of the Oath Act.”
The Committee further urged the House to officially communicate to the EC of its decision for favourable consideration before the finalisation and presentation of the new CI to Parliament for passage into law.
The Speaker of Parliament lauded the Leadership of the House for the consensus they had attained on the recommendations to the EC.
Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, the NDC Minority Leader, in his contribution to the debate for the adoption of the report, said the concerns of the Minority were about the intention of the EC to use the Ghana Card as the only source identification document for registration of new voters.
“Mr Speaker, the other one relates to the guarantor system and the last one relates to the fact that the Electoral Commission intended to use only the district offices as the basis of continuous registration,” he said.
“Mr Speaker, I can confirm that our concerns have been addressed adequately in the Committee of the Whole’s report.”
He expressed gratitude to the Speaker for chairing the Committee of the Whole and then to the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu for leading them into a path of consensus.
“Mr Speaker, today is a victory for democracy, it is a victory for the very survival of our democracy,” he said.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu noted there had arisen a couple of issues concerning the decision of the EC to use the Ghana Card as the only source document for voter registration.
He said whereas the EC indicated that they had on their books closed 17 million Ghanaians who had been registered, the Ghana Statistical Service indicated that by 2024, the number of eligible Ghanaians who would qualify to vote would be in the region of 19 million; which meant there was a shortfall of about two million.
He said for the NIA had registered over six hundred thousand Ghanaians, who had been issued Ghana Cards but had not picked the cards at the various Centres, and that there were 500,000 people the Authority had registered but that Authority was not in a position to supply them with cards because of the lack of funds.
He said if the CI was passed by the House, the Commission was required to continue with the continuous voter registration, however, if people went before them, they were required to produce the Ghana Card; but through no fault of theirs, over 512,000 people who had been registered by the NIA and had not been issued with their cards, how were those people to identify themselves before the Electoral Commission?
The Majority Leader said this was the reason why they were appealing to the EC to tarry until the NIA was able to afford every eligible Ghanaian the right to register with the Authority to submit the same card to the EC to be registered as a voter.
GNA