The Electoral Commission has said it will furnish various political parties with the full list of persons whose names have been deleted from the voters’ register because they registered using the National Health Insurance cards as proof of Ghanaian citizenship.
The EC’s move comes barely a day after the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) alleged that the Commission deliberately removed the names of some of its members from the electoral roll.
According to the party, a lot of its members have complained about the removal of their names from the roll, although they did not register with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card.
The Supreme Court on July 5, 2016, ordered the Commission to delete names of NHIS registrants, following a ruling in 2014, where the use of the NHIS card was declared illegal for the purposes of registering as a Ghanaian voter.
The court’s order followed a suit filed by former National Youth Organizer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan, and one Evans Nimako.
Monitor registration process – EC to parties
The EC in a statement also asked political parties to send agents to observe the re- registration process in line with existing regulations. The Commission deleted the names of some 56,772 who registered with NHIS cards.
It subsequently announced that the names of affected persons will be publicized, whiles they would be given the chance to re-register using the right procedure as the court ordered.
The exhibition and re-registration exercise thus commenced concurrently non July 18, 2016.
Below are modalities for the re-registration of the affected persons
#IPACDecisions: RE-REGISTRATION OF THE DELETED NHIS CARD REGISTRANTS
At the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held on Thursday July 12, 2016, the Commission informed the parties that the names of the 56,772 NHIS card registrants submitted to the Supreme Court have been deleted from the Voters Register database in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court. All parties unanimously endorsed the Commission’s modalities for re-registration of the NHIS card registrants in compliance with the Court’s order. The agreed modalities as follows:
1. EC to publish the list of all persons affected by the Supreme Court deletion order in the Daily Graphic before July 18, 2016.
2. EC to publish the names of the affected persons at the offices of the district assemblies and the Commission’s district offices.
3. EC to re-register all NHIS card registrants affected by the deletion from 18th July to 28th July 2016 at the district offices of the EC in the area where they registered. (They will be required to present their existing Voter ID card or show proof of identity). Further, affected persons will only be registered on providing proof of citizenship, age and that they are of sound mind in accordance with the requirements of the Law;
4. EC to ensure that the list of the NHIS card registrants at the district offices of the EC have pictures to ensure that only persons affected by the judgment are given the opportunity to re-register;
5. EC to provide the list of all deleted NHIS card registrants to political parties;
6. EC to hold exhibition of the provisional register for NHIS card holders who have re-registered from 5th to 7th August 2016 at their polling stations;
7. Political parties are entitled to send agents to observe the re- registration process in line with the Law;
The Commission has fully rolled out all the above agreements since the start of the re-registration exercise.
Signed:
Eric Kofi Dzakpasu
Head of Communications
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