The National Peace Council has accepted the move to make the Ghana Card the only proof of identification accepted by the Electoral Commission (EC) in future elections.
The EC had previously suggested that the card be the only need for registration, but important parties objected because of problems with the National Identification Authority’s (NIA) Ghana Card issuance process.
But following a meeting behind closed doors with the EC to discuss issues pertaining to the impending elections, Dr. Ernest Adu Gyamfi, the Chairman of the National Peace Council, emphasized that using the Ghana Card is essential because the guarantor system highlights numerous flaws in the electoral process.
“The reality is that until we accept Ghana card or one system as our form of registration, the figures they gave us 63 per cent of those who registered within this short period used the guarantor system, which is high. Ghana cards are 39 per cent so that the whole system of busing people will continue.”
“You bring people from a different constituency, if I think that this is my safe zone and I have enough votes when they move people from the constituency, then you go and say,’ Where’s your card, where do you live?’, somebody comes in and say I know him. How can you challenge those things?”
In a related development, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission Jean Mensah reiterated the commission’s commitment to ensure that all inmates who have turned 18 in various prisons will be registered as part of its mop-up exercise scheduled from August 1 to August 3, 2024.
“The registration for our citizens in the prison facilities in the country will take place from the 1st to the 3rd of August. The Commission intends to have a mop-up exercise in all the 268 district offices including the newly created Guan constituencies.”
“As part of the mopping exercise we intend to register citizens who are eligible in all prisons across the country and we will work extensively with the Ghana Prisons Service on the number of inmates who qualified for registration.”
