Voter roll saga: Only SC can stop EC boss – NPP MP

Vice Chairman of Parliament’s Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Kofi Osei Ameyaw, has said the Electoral Commission (EC) is operating within the confines of the law over its interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling.

The Commission’s insistence on not deleting from the electoral roll, names of people who used their National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards to register as voters, has drawn the ire of the plaintiffs. Mr Abu Ramadan of the People’s National Convention (PNC), who took the case to the court in the first place to seek that the register of voters be declared null and void, argued that the EC has wrongly interpreted the ruling.

However, speaking to Class News parliamentary correspondent Ekow Annan, Mr Ameyaw, who is also the Member of Parliament for Asuogyaman, urged the plaintiffs to go back to court since the EC, in his view, is operating within the confines of the law.

“We can make the noise, she will proceed with this register until she authenticates it …as a final register. …It is only the Supreme Court that can stop her because she is proceeding with a constitutional instrument 91. [She] is doing her work, unless the Supreme Court says that the provisions that she is using in the constitutional instrument are unconstitutional,” Mr Ameyaw said.

“…Parliament has given her the right by virtue of allowing CI91 to operate as the operating law...so, she is operating within the constitutional instrument 91. Whether that is against the Supreme Court order, is up to the Supreme Court to make that determination”, he noted, adding that: “Otherwise she is proceeding with CI91, which has been approved by parliament”.

The Asuogyaman legislator recommended that the plaintiff go back to court.