The Ashanti regional branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to extend the period of the re-registration which is part of the ongoing voters register exhibition to allow those whose names have been deleted to have enough time to re-register.
According to the party, the EC failed to educate the public on the number of days designated for the re-registration exercise. It said as a result many people had laid back not knowing exactly when the period would elapse.
At a press conference attended by all regional and constituency executives of the party, the Regional Secretary of the party, Mr Sam Pyne, said the message sent out by the commission made it look like the whole exercise would last the entire 21 days of the exhibition period, even though only 10 days had been set aside for the re-registration.
He said the issue was further compounded by the fact that it was only a single office space that had been allocated in each district for such an immense exercise.
Irregularities
He said the whole exercise was fraught with irregularities as people who had never owned a national health insurance card nor registered with one had had their names deleted from the register, while others who are alive had been labelled as dead and their names removed from the register.
To make a bad matter worse, he said, the slow pace of the re-registration exercise, coupled with the unstable power supply had made the exercise cumbersome and tedious.
According to him, it had become imperative therefore for the EC to extend the time apportioned for the re-registration exercise since the period currently stipulated was not enough to allow people whose names have been wrongly deleted the opportunity to re-register as ordered the Supreme Court.
Mr Pyne gave an example from the Atwima Mponua constituency where as many as 1,700 people had had their names deleted for allegedly using the NHIS card to register as voters.
He said considering that all the affected people must be given the opportinity to re-register, the slowness of the exercise and intermittent power outages made the possibility of all of them re-registering very doubtful, adding that he was therefore afraid that many of such people would be disenfranchised.
The Ashanti Regional Secretary of the NPP said even if 100 people registered every day, it would take a minimum of 17 days for all affected persons in that constituency to go through the process.
Abnormal figures
The party also raised concerns about what it called abnormal figures that were being churned out by the EC supposedly to be the number of people who had engaged in double registration.
According to the party, even though double registration was an offence, the average figure of 38 names per polling station was abnormal and must be looked into.
Appeal
The party has appealed to civil society organisations, the media, the peace council and the country’s development partners to hold the head of the EC accountable if things did not go well in the country.
It said, “Whatever effect that the exhibition or the re-registration would have on the nation would be on the head of the Electoral Commissioner of Ghana.”
According to the party, “the recent occurrences are recipe for disaster and could derail the peace and stability the nation is enjoying because the exhibition process and re-registration exercise which is leading up to the general election in December is a core component of the electioral process.
“And if care is not taken and by means of the actions and inactions of the authorities that have the power and mandate to work on these things do not get them right, then the nation is definitely not going to enjoy what we are enjoying now,” the party said
