There is a possibility that the 33000 of the over 57000 voters struck off the voter roll for using National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards to register onto the electoral register in 2012 but who failed to submit themselves to be reregistered are foreigners, Bernard Mornah, National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), has said.
On Friday July 29, the EC announced at a press conference addressed by its Director of Communications, Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, that at the end of the 10-day reregistration exercise, only a little over 24000 out of the more than 57000 ‘NHIS voters’ whose names were deleted, were reregistered, an indication that over 33000 ‘NHIS voters’ have been disenfranchised as far as this year’s general elections are concerned.
He added that in spite of the low turnout, the election management body had no plans to extend the period for the reregistration, which came to an end on Thursday.
“…It 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 within the 10 days. There is no evidence that when an extension of the date is granted, the remaining people will come out of their houses or communities and get their names re-registered. In the considered opinion of the [Electoral] Commission, the re-registration exercise could not be extended. Apart from the fact that the exercise was extensively publicised, the decision not to extend the exercise has been informed by a number of additional substantive reasons,” Mr Dzakpasu said.
Leading members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have called on the EC to extend the period for the reregistration in order to capture all those who could not reregister.
Speaking in an in interview with Naa Dedei Tettey on Campaign Trail on Class91.3FM Friday July 29, Mr Mornah said since these voters could not use the opportunity to be registered, it meant they were the foreigners whose names appeared on the register.
He asked: “Can we as a nation then say that these are the supposed foreigners that we claimed were on the voters’ register?
“Therefore, they used the National Health Insurance Scheme cards and having used the cards they cannot avail themselves to the process of reregistration.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
