Make all the noise you want; EC's position is final - NDC

Koku Anyidoho, Deputy General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Abu Ramadan and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) should continue making all the noise they want to make over the position of the Electoral Commission (EC) on the Supreme Court ruling regarding the credibility of the voters' register, since that will change anything.

The EC in a statement released said they are going to implement the Supreme Court ruling granted on May 5, 2016 in respect of the case of “Abu Ramadan & Evans Nimako vrs The Electoral Commission & The Attorney-General”.

The two petitioners Abu Ramadan a former national organiser of the People's National Convention (PNC), and other person, Evans Nimako prayed the court to declared the electoral roll as null and void since it was bloated.

But the ruling of the court ordered the EC to clean the names of persons who are ineligible to be on the roll and give them an opportunity to re-register.

Petitioners have held the view that, the ruling required the EC to delete names of persons who registered with NHIS cards. However, the statement from the EC said, a careful study of the ruling did not order them to delete names of persons who registered with the cards.

The EC said, "for persons who registered with NHIA cards, such registrations were lawful at the time of registration, and the subsequent declaration of unconstitutionality in the earlier Abu Ramadan case, does not ‘automatically render them void."

And that deleting such names according to the Supreme Court, “would have the effect of disenfranchising the persons affected. Such registrations should only be deleted by means of processes established under the law”.

The petitioners are however citing the Commission for contempt of court and have hinted of suing all seven Commissioners for ''high crime''.

The ruling, they argue is clear and for the EC to state this position is unfortunate.

But Koku Anyidoho has chided the petitioners and the NPP and has urged Ghanaians to ignore them.

According to him, the petitioners and the NPP misinterpreted the ruling of the Supreme Court to deceive Ghanaians on their unnecessary calls on the EC to compile a new register.

Koku explained, the ruling by the court cannot take retrospective effect hence it will be unfortunate for one with 'common sense' to claim that the ruling suggested that EC should delete names of persons who registered with NHIS.

He added, deleting the names of persons who registered in 2012 with the NHIS by extension means deleting names of persons who they guaranteed for in the recent limited registration exercise.

"You cannot pass laws with retrospective effect, it doesn't happen anywhere. And so the Supreme Court can never rule for it to have retrospective effect, yet the NPP and Abu Ramadan were running around all over the place, creating the impression that," the Supreme Court had ordered the EC to delete names of persons who registered with NHIS...People guaranteed for people in the limited registration exercise