The Electoral Commission’s insistence on using the Ghana Card as the sole document to authenticate registrants’ nationality for the voter registration has faced many oppositions, latest among them coming from the Majority Leader in Parliament.
Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has asserted that the Commission’s own admission to the nonavailability of the Ghana card to all eligible citizens make it troubling in settling on it as the sole ID for the voter registration exercise.
According to the Suame lawmaker, the National Identification Authority (NIA) is having challenges issuing the cards to persons who have registered for it and relying on it would be premature and disenfranchise many eligible voters.
He has pointed out the shortcomings in the EC’s attempt to link the voter registration for next month’s District Level Elections with the Ghana Card for the exclusion of qualified persons who do lack the Ghana card, making it face many criticisms.
He has emphasised that, reiterating the development in the 2024 exercise will create problems.
“So many people don’t have the Ghana card and some of the people who have registered to get the card have not been given the card. And given the pendency of the District Level Elections (DLE) to have tied registration to the Ghana card knowing that some of the eligible Ghanaians have not been registered to get the Ghana cards…to say that you were restricting it to the Ghana card was going to be problematic.”
“If they can assure that every eligible Ghanaian will be provided with the Ghana card then you can bring the instrument based on the Ghana card. But if you admit that not every eligible Ghanaian has been registered or can be registered then it becomes difficult to tie the registration solely to the Ghana card,” he indicated.
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