The Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, George Loh, has said Ghana would have to bolster its national identification system in order for the country to have a more credible electoral register.
He argued that a system to provide Ghanaians with genuine national identification cards was needed to ensure credible entries into the voters’ register.
[contextly_sidebar id=”LHOzKlOBKpEowl7ZFuDMn7WKIv0KXqRj”]His comment is in reaction to the recent Supreme Court judgement ordering the Electoral Commission to expunge from the voters’ register names of all persons who registered in the 2012 elections, with the National Health Insurance Card as a proof of identity.
The Supreme Court gave the ruling in a case brought before it by a former National Youth Organizer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan and one Evans Nimako, who were challenging the credibility of the current register.
Speaking on The Big Issue, Mr. Loh intimated that, although the ruling now means that only Ghanaian Drivers’ Licenses and Passports can be used for registering onto the electoral roll, the register can still contain ineligible names because in his view, a Ghanaian passport or a drivers’ license does not qualify an individual as Ghanaian.
“I have a problem with all the documents that we are even asking for thinking that we are eliminating certain things… By holding Ghanaian passports doesn’t mean you are a Ghanaian who’s qualified to register. That is my interpretation.”
He explained that one of the major stumbling blocks to attaining a credible register was the absence of a genuine national identification system which should be a priority.
“There are real issues. In the absence of a system that will give us a genuine national identification card, we will have these problems. For many years, we will not even have a voters’ register that is 70 per cent clean… we are only dancing around the problem. We must develop maybe 90 per cent proof national identification system.”
Majority registered with NHIS out of convenience
Mr. Loh is also of the view that many individuals registered with the NHIS card because it was convenient and not necessarily because they were not Ghanaians.
According to him, “Your NHIA card is what is readily available to you so that is what you possibly put in your wallet and walk around so you go out there and use that.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citfmonline.com/Ghana