The Electoral Commission (EC) has finally released the deleted names of 56,772 persons thought to have used the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card as a form of identification to register as voters.
It follows an order by the Supreme Court for the EC to remove [delete] the names of such persons from the electoral roll.
That was after political activists Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako had filed a suit at the court challenging the credibility of the existing register after the same Supreme Court had earlier invalidated the use of the NHIS card as a medium of national identification in acquiring a voter ID card.
On Wednesday, July 13, 2016, the EC announced at a press conference that it had deleted the names of the affected persons from the register, in compliance with the Supreme Court order, and offered to give them yet another opportunity to re-register as demanded by the court.
Yesterday, it posted the list on its website – www.ec.gov.gh – to enable those affected and the general public to take note.
However, pressure group, Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA), has already questioned the credibility of the list provided by the EC.
The group believes there is more to it than what the commission sent to the court.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, convener of the group, David Asante said, “Per their dogged resistance to giving Ghanaians a clean register, the Charlotte Osei-led EC has done more than enough to let Ghanaians know that it cannot be trusted to deliver a free, fair and transparent election.”
56,900 Names
Interestingly, the list of persons supposed to have used the NHIS card to secure the voter ID card as released by the EC yesterday on its website, contained the names of 56,900 persons, contrary to the 56,772 that it claims to have deleted, thereby raising doubts about the credibility of the exercise.
It begins with a certain Emelia Donkor with voter ID card number 7639019764 and NHIS card number 23358228, but no known constituency or polling station was indicated; and ends with that of one Zuwera Issah: voter ID card number 2470019866 and NHIS card number 15042723 – who is the last person on the list of the 56,900 – also with no known polling station or constituency.
But the EC is expected to cause a publication to be made in the national dailies and subsequently posted in all the offices of the commission.
They have therefore set aside 10 days to re-register those affected from July 18 to 28, 2016.
LMVCA Questions EC’s Credibility
LMVCA still believes that the EC boss, Charlotte Osei and the commission lack what it takes to organize free and fair elections.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the LMVCA raised issues about the EC’s ability to save what the group termed its sinking image.
Convener of the group, David Asante, questioned the credibility of the 56,772 people said to have used the NHIS card to register their names in the existing voter register.
The list represents 0.404% of the 14,031,793 who registered in the year 2012.
According to the LMVCA, that meant that on average, only two registered voters per each of the 26,002 polling stations nationwide registered with the NHIS card.
Meanwhile, LMVCA noted, “In 2012, according to figures from the National Health Insurance Authority, the National Health Insurance Scheme had a total of 8,885,757 active members nationwide.”
The group revealed that the Ghana Statistical Service estimates the total population of Ghana in 2012 was 25,758,528 thus, 34.50% of the population were active members of the NHIS whiles 14,031,793 people were captured on the 2012 biometric voter register.
They therefore wondered why “the EC saw nothing wrong with insulting the intelligence of Ghanaians with the claim that less than half of one percent of those who registered four years ago used the NHIS card.
“Indeed, the EC wanted the country to believe that it fought Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako for two whole years in court to protect the deletion of only 57,772 names from a register of over 14 million,” David Asante insinuated.
Per what he described as “their dogged resistance to giving Ghanaians a clean register,” the LMVCA convener insisted that “The Charlotte Osei-led EC has done more than enough to let Ghanaians know that it cannot be trusted to deliver free, fair and transparent elections.”
He was however, hopeful that the destiny of Ghana’s democracy would not be unduly influenced and diverted by those in-charge of the electoral process.
“What we sense out there is that the determination of Ghanaians this year to ensure that it is their votes that count and not the counting of people contracted to rig elections is very high,” he emphasized.
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By Charles Takyi-Boadu