The Electoral Commission (EC) will clean the voters’ register during the exhibition exercise in July, Deputy Commissioner in-charge of Operations has said.
The main opposition party NPP and other groups, have continually protested against what they say is a bloated voters’ register.
But appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Wednesday, the Deputy Commissioner in-charge of Operations at the EC, Amadu Sulley, said the exhibition process will help produce a credible register.
“It is during the exhibition that we are able to come up with a credible register or do the cleaning and there are various processes that lead to the cleaning of the voters’ register…whatever we are going to do next month, is going to be very legal and the processes will be clear. We can’t finish the exhibition before we come and say we are going to do another cleaning or we do cleaning before we get into the exhibition. The exhibition period is when we clean the register.”
Asked when the exhibition is expected to come off, Mr. Sulley said :”The exhibition is slated for the 18th of July up till the 7th of August, and the nomination will come off in the first and second days of September. This is what we have currently and are working towards the current amendments that we have.”
Court’s order
The Commission’s decision to clean the register follows an order from the Supreme Court asking it to expunge names of persons who registered using the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards.
The court also ordered the EC to delete names of deceased persons as well as ineligible persons whose names are on the register.
The court however did not give the EC a specific timeline for the cleaning. The ruling followed a suit filed by a former National Youth Organizer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan, and one Evans Nimako.
The two among other reliefs, wanted the current register declared unfit for the November polls. It is unclear how the EC would be implementing the directives of the court, since it interpreted it differently.
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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