Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu
Members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Majority in Parliament have launched a scathing attack on their National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority colleagues, accusing them of spreading lies in order to mislead Ghanaians about the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) that the Electoral Commission (EC) plans to introduce in the House.
EC has said it needs the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations 2022, which will use the Ghana Card as the sole form of identification for anyone wishing to register as a voter.
Chairperson of Commission, Jean Mensa told Parliament on Tuesday that the draft legislation, which will do away with the guarantor system, would prevent unqualified people from influencing the country’s elections.
But the NDC MPs, led by Dr. Ato Forson, insist they will not allow the CI to be laid before the House, warning that any attempt by the EC to insist on the Ghana Card as the sole identity document for voter registration would deprive the vast majority of citizens of their constitutional right to register and vote.
However, in response to the NDC lawmakers’ arguments, the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, said that the NDC Minority appeared to have oppositional disorder and was constantly opposed to any improvements made to Ghana’s electoral system.
Strawman Fallacy
According to him, the NDC MPs are opposing for the sake of opposing, smearing the public’s eyes with strawman fallacies.
He stated at a press conference in Parliament yesterday that the new CI will ensure continuous registration, emphasising, “Let nobody throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.”
“Because what they are engaged in is selling palpable untruth. Let’s not forget that any time improvement is coming back into the system – migrating from opaque boxes to transparent boxes, from thumb-printed ID cards to picture ID cards, from black and white passport picture to coloured picture, from picture ID restricted to cities to rural areas and the introduction of biometrics – every single one of them has been opposed by the NDC. Why?” he quizzed.
He continued, “What explains this? Anytime we want to improve or sanitise the system they oppose. The Electoral Commission admits that its system is not full-proof and that the National Identification Authority’s (NIA) is much robust and so it wants to, as the law provides, align itself to sanitise the system and eliminate the fraud.”
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said 17 million out of the 19 million Ghanaians projected to be eligible for registration, had been registered and issued with the Ghana Cards, adding, “The next thing is those of them who registered and have their cards will use the cards to identify themselves as Ghanaian citizens in order to qualify to be registered on EC register.”
“What is the sin that the Commission has caused?” he quizzed and continued, “Finally, the issue about finance, the Ministry of Finance was brought in to provide assurance that indeed the enterprise is going to be financed.”
He reiterated the Finance Minister’s statement that the ministry had already released GH¢80 million and that an additional GH¢20 million would be released to CalBank in order for it to release the NIA’s cards at the Customs’ bonded warehouse.
“The NIA is saying once it has the cards beginning Monday, it will require just 11 days to issue the outstanding 541,000 cards to those of them who have registered and yet to be served,” the Majority Leader asserted.
He stated that the authority had assured Parliament that the remaining two million people would be registered immediately, so that by the time the country holds elections, everyone who is eligible to vote under the law will not be disenfranchised.
“The question to ask is when the baptismal certificate, driver’s licence, and birth certificate were taken off, did it serve as a restraint on citizens’ right to register to vote?
“When passport is taken off, does it amount to restraint on citizens’ rights? There are many more Ghanaians with baptismal and birth certificates as well as health insurance cards than there are with passports. So when those ones were struck off they amounted to restraining Ghanaians from registering to vote?” he asked rhetorically.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House