Mahama Ayariga expresses reservation with EC’s plan to jettison guarantor system

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central Constituency in the Upper East Region, Mahama Ayariga, has expressed reservation with the Electoral Commission (EC)’s plan to jettison the guarantor system as it adopts the Ghana Card as the only source document for continuous voter registration.

He indicated that the National Identification Register also had a guarantor system used by persons trying to get a Ghana Card.

“I was part of a Special Budget Committee meeting which welcomed the representatives from the EC to discuss the proposed legislative amendments through the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) that could enforce the proposed change of making the Ghana Card the sole form of identification in Parliament and has been referred to the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of the House.

“It appears to me at that meeting that they did not know because the original National Identification Register Act of 2008 did not provide for a guarantor system but in 2017, the Commission came back to Parliament for an amendment, so I told Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, if it was not a reasonable arrangement, the National Identification Authority would not have come to Parliament for an amendment of their law to embrace the guarantee system,” Mr Ayariga bemoaned.

He urged the EC to focus on safeguarding the guarantor system it already had in place and reconsider jettisoning the guarantor system which should be part of electoral processes to guarantee free, fair, credible and transparent elections.