New voters register brouhaha: NDC MP wants EC to appear before Parliament

Member of Parliament for Banda and deputy Minority Chief Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, wants the Electoral Commission, EC, summoned to appear before the House over controversy surrounding purported plans for a new voters register.

Parliament's Subsidiary Legislation Committee is currently working on a draft Constitutional Instrument, CI, on voter registration but the Minority earlier this week said the CI contained plans

Read full articleto compile a new register for the 2024 vote.

Whiles making contributions on the floor of Parliament, Ahmed Ibrahim, said a briefing by the EC preferably next week could help prevent controversy.

“Now that the Subsidiary Legislation Committee is doing what we call pre-laying… [maybe] the EC can appear before us next week before we adjourn so that when it comes and briefs us as a committee of the whole, then we juxtapose the two inputs and be able to see how we can find a way to solve these problems so that when the time comes, we wouldn’t be confronted with some controversial issues,” the Banda MP argued.

His view was opposed by Ranking Member of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, O.B. Amoah who said with the committee's work having started, there is no need for the EC to be invited.

“We have almost completed the discussions. Regarding the Ghana Card guarantors, we asked the EC to go back and look at it, so I don’t think there is any need to drag them here at this time,” Amoah said.

The Minority are concerned with the compilation of the register over cost implication and also over the sole use of the Ghana Card as the base identification document.

Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu at a press conference this week put the cost at US$80 million but the EC has flatly dismissed the report that it wanted to compile a new register.