The New Patriotic Party’s General Secretary, John Boadu, has denied reports of the party disagreeing to the National Identification Authority’s (NIA) decision to conduct a mop-up exercise in areas which faced challenges during the Ghana Card registration exercise.
“I didn’t say that. All that I said was that if you consider the number of people who have not yet been issued their card, the total per the NIA record is around 3.76842 million people. And if you want to even play politics with it, you will realise that it is rather the NPP who will be shortchanged if these cards don’t get to the people in question because if you take the Central, Ashanti, Greater Accra and Eastern regions, that only constitutes 2% of those who have not been issued their cards yet. So contrary to the falsehood and misinformation the NDC was putting out, it is rather the NPP that will be shortchanged in that area,” he said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday.
Due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, plans towards the general elections were put on hold. These included the registration of citizens for the national identification card and the compilation of the biometric voters’ register.
An Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting which took place on Wednesday had the Electoral Commission (EC) and political parties present deciding on starting the compilation of the new voters’ register in June 2020.
The NIA, which is involved in registering people for the Ghana card, one of the requirements needed for the voters’ register, has also decided to continue its exercise.
On the back of this, there have been reports indicating that John Boadu revealed that the governing NPP will reject the NIA’s plans of conducting the mop-up exercise because the NPP stands a chance of losing the elections if that is done.
But, Mr. Boadu clarified that he only meant to suggest that the NIA should rather conduct a mass registration exercise instead of the mop-up.
“If you look at the people who are qualified to register as compared to the total number of people who enrolled, you realise 7.7 million have not yet been enrolled. So if the EC is able to even distribute the 3.75 cards within this period, then they [the NIA] must not only do mop-up exercise. They must do mass registration to get more people who qualified to register to have the card to have them. They can’t also even go ahead and do registration to delay the issuance of the card unless they would be able to give some tickets, voucher or notification that indicates that you’ve registered and you’re waiting for tour card that you can use for the registration. So I am saying that I would encourage them to do mass registration instead of mop-up,” he explained.
NIA, EC accused of rigging elections
As part of John Boadu’s sentiments on the rumours, he denied claims by the NDC on the mop-up exercise being in favour of the governing party.
This was in connection to accusations by the main opposition party saying that the NIA was conspiring with the EC to rig the 2020 general elections for the current party in power.
But the Executive Secretary of the NIA, Professor Kenneth Attafuah, denied these claims, saying that he was greatly offended by the unsubstantiated rumours.
He remarked that the thought of conspiring to rig an election never crossed his mind.
Roadmap for the voters’ registration exercise
The Electoral Commission has outlined plans for the biometric registration exercise in June. This was included after the IPAC meeting on Wednesday.
The Commission will be maintaining its cluster method for the upcoming exercise although the time spent in each cluster is expected to reduce.
Each registration team will work for six days in each phase within a cluster, a reduction from the initial 10 days outlined for the registration exercise which was postponed from April 18 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The mop-up exercise has also reduced from five to three days.
The registration exercise will take place at all the 33,367 polling stations, which will serve as registration centres nationwide.
The registration period will have five phases with each registration team working for a period of six days in each phase within the cluster.
All eligible voters will be given instant voter ID cards when they register, except in cases where applications have been challenged.
Among the COVID-19 safety protocols to be observed includes the mandatory wearing of face masks at the registration centres.
People’s temperature will be checked before one is allowed into the registration centre and there will be running water available for handwashing.