{"id":235264,"date":"2016-07-29T12:02:19","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T12:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=235264"},"modified":"2016-07-29T12:02:19","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T12:02:19","slug":"we-wont-extend-nhis-re-registration-period-ec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=235264","title":{"rendered":"We won’t extend ‘NHIS’ re-registration period – EC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Electoral Commission (EC) has said it will not extend the deadline for the re-registration exercise despite revealing that only 24, 287\u00a0 of the deleted NHIS registrants, were re-registered during the 10-day exercise, as part of the voters\u2019 register exhibition exercise.<\/p>\n

The EC has explained that there is no indication that an extension would ensure more people are re-registered.<\/p>\n

Addressing the media today [Friday], the EC\u2019s Communications Director, Eric Dzakpasu, stated that \u201cthere is no evidence that when an extension is granted, the remaining people will come out of their houses or communities to get their name re-registered.\u201d<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”7jP2QEBezgdnQCR54Oob8WM7v31WVbvC”]\u201cIn the considered opinion of the commission, the registration exercise could not be extended,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Time needed to process data<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Dzakpasu\u00a0further explained that, the EC is “required by law to exhibit the provisional register of the persons re-registered\u201d and it would need time to process the data captured hence the non-extension of the re-registration period.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt necessarily follows that the data captured must be processed. This means we would require some time to be able to do that in order to be in the position to exhibit the provisional register for the registrants from the fifth to eight August 2016 as agreed at the IPAC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Low publicity\u00a0not to blame<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Dzakpasu also insisted that the turn out of the exercise should not be blamed on the low publicity.<\/p>\n

\"Director
Director of Communications at the EC, Eric Dzakpasu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe obvious turn out of this exercise cannot be blamed on low publicity and inadequate public education\u2026 This is one electoral activity that has made news and has been trending in the news for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot be the case that the low turnout was caused by low publicity. The message was well disseminated. If people actually wanted to get registered, they could have done so with the 10 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disenfranchisement\u00a0fears<\/strong><\/p>\n

The EC\u00a0had\u00a0publicly expressed fears<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0that most of the deleted registrants could\u00a0be disenfranchised if the situation did not improve\u00a0after it revealed\u00a0out of the 56,762 names deleted, only 14,801 had re-registered.\u201d<\/p>\n

The EC\u2019s admission would appear to justify calls made for an extension of the 10-day re-registration exercise.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region, raised concerns with the low registration rate and called on the EC\u00a0to\u00a0extend the period of re-registration<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0after it indicated that 14,801 had re-registered as of Monday.<\/p>\n

The NPP blamed this on the perceived poor publicity of the re-registration on the EC’s part, and it wants the re-registration to run concurrently with the 21 day exhibition exercise which the EC has sought to debunk.<\/p>\n

According to them, \u201cthe EC never came out to give education on the time frame because when they announced that they were going to do the exhibition, they said 21 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

EC petitioned to extend re-<\/strong>registration<\/b><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Member of Parliament for the Efutu Constituency in the Central Region, Alex Afenyo Markin, also petitioned the Commission\u00a0to extend the window of re-registration for NHIS card registrants by 10 days.<\/p>\n

The MP lamented that the exercise in his constituency has been fraught with power and logistical challenges which have prevented the EC from capturing as many names as possible.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Electoral Commission (EC) has said it will not extend the deadline for the re-registration exercise despite revealing that only 24, 287\u00a0 of the deleted NHIS registrants, were re-registered during the 10-day exercise, as part of the voters\u2019 register exhibition exercise. The EC has explained that there is no indication that an extension would ensure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":209760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}