NDC Is Not Against Use Of Ghana Card For Voter Registration – Bolga East MP

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolga East Constituency in the Upper East Region, Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine has disclosed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is not opposed to the use of the Ghana Card as the sole identification for voter registration.

According to him, the NDC party was part of the discussions when the National Identification Register Act and C.I were passed by Parliament.

He said that the Ghana Card is the panacea to nurture peace and to rid the country of any political violence in next year’s general elections and beyond.

“So we are not against the use of the Ghana Card. In fact, we think that the Ghana Card is the solution for delivering a clean society and for delivering a clean election”, he said.

Speaking on Newsfile on Saturday, the former Deputy Attorney-General and Minister for Justice explained that the party’s challenge with the Ghana Card is its availability for use by eligible persons to register to vote.

He was reacting to an assurance by the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority, Prof. Ken Attafuah on the same programme, that there are only 2.5 million eligible Ghanaians who have not been issued with the Ghana Card.

He said this large number of Ghanaian citizens have not been issued the Card and that will make it impossible for such persons to register to vote.

“…our issue is the availability of the Card. You are talking about the 2.5 million Ghanaians who have not yet been issued with the Card. ……… 2.5 million people is a significant number, so it means if you disaggregate that figure, it means there’s some who will be eligible to vote and there are some who are minors and will not be able to vote.

One of the means to obtain the Ghana Card is through the guarantor system.

However, the Bolga East MP said that people who live in remote areas already have a dearth in providing source documents that will aid them to register for the Ghana Card if the government insists they provide the Ghana Card to aid them register for voting.

“In very remote areas such as my constituency where people are born without birth certificates and so on, they grow up to a certain level and they don’t have any form of identification. So if you insist that these persons must produce the Ghana Card in other to register to vote, then it means that if you take off the guarantor system from the requirement to get a voter ID card, they are going to use the same guarantor system in order to be able to get the Ghana Card.

“So your source document which is your basis to become eligible to register to vote [already] has a deficiency that you are seeking to cure”, he stressed.

He continued by saying “So our biggest problem is that … in most areas of the country, people do not have the identity documents that will allow them easily obtain the Ghana Card”.

Dr Ayine said that if the Ghana Card is made available for all Ghanaians to vote, they will welcome the decision to use the card.

“So our problem is that, if the Ghana Card were available everywhere in the country, for all persons eligible to vote, we have no problem with that”, he said.

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