Former Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, has postulated that it is unconstitutional for the Electoral Commission (EC) not to hold limited registration exercise since 2021.
“The EC has sinned against the 1992 Constitution by not holding limited registration exercises since 2021and this has disallowed some citizens who have come of age, the opportunity to enroll as voters,” he stated.
He asked to be challenged on his assertion with facts and figures and insisted that “in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, Ghanaians who have attained the age of 18 years have been denied the opportunity to be captured as registered voters and this is a constitutional wrong”.
Mr Iddrisu indicated that the situation was unacceptable to a country committed and dedicated to multiparty constitutional democracy.
The EC’s new Constitutional Instrument (CI) makes the Ghana Card the only identification document to be used to guarantee citizenship however, the Minority is also opposed to a regulation in the CI which requires persons who want to register to do so at an EC district office.
“The Electoral Commission by virtue of their existing CI have no reason to tell anybody and this August House why they have still failed to capture Ghanaians who have attained 18 years and it must not be allowed to lay its new CI in Parliament since the regulations will disenfranchise Ghanaians, thus must not be allowed to go through.
“The Electoral Commission is now informing the citizenry through Parliament that only the national ID card issued by the National Identification Authority will be a sole reference document for the purpose of registration, that is the intendment of what is referred to as a draft CI,” Mr Iddrisu bemoaned.
But speaking in defence of the EC’s proposed CI, O.B Amoah,MP for Akuapem South in the Eastern Region, said the EC was justified in seeking to use the Ghana Card as the sole identity document.
He contended that the guarantor system had been abused in the sense that people override, detain guarantee contractors where they join the queue, get registered, stand by and say they are waiting for 10 or five people and described abuse of guarantor system as worrisome and must be taken into consideration.
“If you look at the report, he seems to acknowledge the guarantor system has been abused, even as practitioners, thought behind guarantor system is to acknowledge where prospective registrants did not have any means of identification, canfall on their parents, spouses and children to guarantee and sign a form that they know the person,” he explained.
