In recent times, there has been a lot of debates that question the credibility of our electoral roll. While one school of thought believes a new voters’ register should be compiled towards the November, 2016 polls, the other believes in cleaning or auditing the current electoral roll. While a number of the citizenry are proponents or otherwise to these schools of thought, a sizeable number is undecided. The questions that arise from these fruitful debates of national character are: must we as a developing nation that believes in the rule of law, keep compiling new voters’ register, or auditing or cleaning same whenever elections draw closer? what role(s) can a carefully planned, secure, and robust national database play in these debates?
The National Identification Authority (NIA) was established in 2003, with the mandate to issue national ID cards, and manage the National Identification System (NIS) among other things. The National Identification Authority Act, 2006 (Act 707) and, the National Identity Register Act, 2008 (Act 750) were passed to give the necessary legal backing to the operations of the NIA. Subsequently, the NIA started its work with all seriousness across the country to the joy and admiration of many who know of, or appreciate the numerous advantages identification systems of national character offer. Upon their first round of operation towards the production, and subsequent distribution of the so- called “GHANACARD” to the citizenry, their operations have been relegated to their national headquarters. Among the many explanations by the authority to the citizenry, is lack of funds to print, and distribute the cards to their lawful owners.
In as much as these debates are welcomed, and the NIA cannot be blamed fully for the current state of our NIS, in my candid opinion, a carefully planned, and securely implemented NIS would save us a great deal from these debates. Once the NIS is implemented and populated with the required, and necessary data from the citizenry into the national database, we do not need to spend money, time and other resources for the compilation of new voter’s register whenever elections are imminent. This national exercise of compiling new voters’ register, is normally characterized by long queues at various registration centers throughout the country. This affects productivity to a large extent.
With a robust national database in place, professional application developers could be employed to develop customized applications to interface with the national database in a secured and authorized manner. One of such applications could be used to generate, and print Voter ID cards to eligible voters. This will be automated in such a way that, once a registered citizen in the national database turns eighteen (18), and satisfies other conditions that make them eligible to vote, notifications would be sent to these citizens. The newly qualified voter would be informed via Short Message Service (SMS), email, phone call or any other means possible to report at an authorized unit of the NIA, or Electoral Commission (EC) for collection of the card after going through rigorous checks to prevent impersonation, and other possible frauds. The application will accordingly update the national electoral roll.
The EC, representatives of political parties, National Information Technology Agency (NITA), and other key stakeholders in consultation with the NIA would form a credible, and trusted committee to extract and print the voters’ register from the national database. The committee would then go a step further, to undertake rigorous auditing on the newly extracted register to ascertain its authenticity and credibility. When the committee completes its work, the report from their work would be reviewed by another independent body, in order to draw a final conclusion on the national voters’ register. The voters register so extracted and authenticated by these committees would then be exhibited to the general public for verification.
There are more to be derived from the national database to make access to services a lot easier and less stressful. There is therefore, no need queuing for voters’ registration exercise whenever elections are imminent, but a carefully planned, secure, and robust national database. The NIA, has a very crucial role to play towards making Ghana the real star of Africa. Let us get to real work on the NIS now.