The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Inusah Fuseini, has questioned the readiness of the Electoral Commission (EC) ahead of the 2020 election because of the reported cases of missing names from the electoral roll.
In an interview with Citi News, the Tamale Central MP said, the EC must provide clarity on the situation in a bid not to disenfranchise people.
He also suggested the missing names were deliberate.
“You can’t by any stretch of imagination claim 21,000 voters’ names being missing on the register at Ashaiman is diminutive. You can’t say that 1,800 people not having their name on the register when they registered for elections in South Dayi is diminutive”
“But when the removal and the absence of the name on the register are so glaring that it cannot be any stretch of imagination be said to be errors committed by persons or officers of the EC inadvertently then you have to question the Commission and its readiness conduct a free, fair and credible election. I think that this could be deliberate and it’s left with the EC to disapprove that view.”
Haruna Iddrisu disappointed over missing names
On the same issue, the Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, raised concerns that some residents who registered to vote have not been captured on the register.
“There are major discrepancies in the register and what has been made available to registered voters,” he complained to the press.
According to the Minority Leader, he has “requested for a national compilation of these discrepancies in order to guide what will be [the Minority’s] next possible action.”
EC debunks claim of missing names on voter register in Ashaiman
Meanwhile, the EC has debunked claims that the names of 21,000 voters have been deleted from the electoral roll in the Ashaiman constituency.
The Public Relations Officer of the Electoral Commission, Sylvia Annoh, in an interview with Citi News said that although she disagrees with the claims made by the Ashaiman MP, there are processes in place to take care of such issues.
“You are mentioning a very huge figure, 21,000. So let those individuals go to the centres, if they go, and they are denied, they will be given inclusion forms if their names are not in the exemptions list or the multiple lists for them to be included on the voters’ register,” she said.
