'We don’t need new voters’ register, we need National ID'
General News of Sunday, 30 August 2015, Source
Following heated debate on the alleged bloated voters register, the founder of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Paa Kwesi Nduom is suggesting that the National ID [Identity Card], should be used to sanitise the system.
The New Patriotic Party’s Vice Presidential Candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said his party has uncovered evidence that shows, close to 80,000 Togolese have also registered as Ghanaians in the voters’ register, evidence the party claims show that the register is “bloated.”
The governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), has disagreed with the NPP’s claims and suggested the register only needs cleaning and not a new one.
Dr Nduom argued that the only way to identify who a real Ghanaian is, is to resort to the National ID system.
Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle, host of the Citi Breakfast Show, Dr Ndoum insisted that the only way to enhance the credibility of the voters register is to revive the National Identification system.
He suggested that every newly born Ghanaian must instantly be captured onto the National ID system and that “when that child is at age 18, they can carry that card and say I’ve attained the voting age and I want to register and then we practice continuous registration because we have a sound basis of identifying who is a Ghanaian and who is not a Ghanaian. So you cut away all these malpractices. That is what is done in the UK.”
He said; “If you do that, now reconstructing a voter’s register won’t be a huge task. It’s something that needs to be done. But you can’t start by saying we need a new voters register. You must start from the national identification system.”
Meanwhile the Electoral Commission has tasked the various political parties to submit proposals for a new voters register.
The NPP Presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo has said he is confident the Electoral Commission (EC) will compile a new voters’ register before the 2016 elections.
“Since 1992 till today, the NPP has led all the reforms in the electoral system from transparent ballot boxes to biometric registration. The NDC has always rejected electoral reforms. When we pushed for coloured photo IDs, Obed Asamoah who is a member of the NDC took the matter to court,” he said.
