Minority National Democratic Congress
The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament has accused the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of putting plans in place to use the Ghana Card to prepare a new voters’ register to rig the 2020 general elections.
The Minority also accused the government of planning to deprive the people of the Volta Region, which is the stronghold of the NDC, of the Ghana Cards.
Addressing the press conference on Tuesday, the Minority Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said some troubling and dangerous developments in relation to the Births and Deaths Registry in the Volta Region have come to the attention of the Minority.
According to him, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, for no apparent reasons, has started transferring people, who work at the Volta Regional office of the Births and Deaths Registry and suspected to be Ewes.
“We have become aware of exceedingly suspicious, unwarranted and unfair posting, transfers of two persons in charge of the Births and Deaths Registry in the Volta Region. On the same day that those transfers were made, the head at the national head office of the Births and Deaths Registry, John Yao Agbeko was asked to vacate his post,” Mr Ablakwa said.
He mentioned the names of those who have been transferred from the Volta Region office as Richard Womega, the Head of the Regional office and his deputy Peace Agbenyo.
“The bizarre communication requested the two senior officers to cease with immediate effect the registration of all Ghanaians in the Volta Region and report to the Ministry that same day, being June 19, 2018.”
The North Tongu MP said the Minority believed that the reckless intransigence on the part of the NPP administration and the belligerent open defence of same by President Akufo-Addo is targeted primarily at the Volta Region.
According to him, the Volta Region is not the only border region in Ghana, yet the NPP has consistently demonized the people with the sole objective of reducing voter turnout to boost the party’s electoral fortunes.
He said that responsible Ghanaians, including members of the NDC, would not allow the NPP to continue its reckless path to bastardise Ghana’s democracy which well-meaning Ghanaians have toiled to build.
“We will resist fiercely with every force we can marshal any attempt by the NPP to hide under the National Identification Authority’s discredited Ghana Card to usurp the Electoral Commission’s constitutional mandate in compiling a new register of voters.”
By Thomas Fosu Jnr