The Electoral Commission (EC) has called on the National Identification Authority (NIA) to accelerate the pace of the printing of Ghana cards to make it easy for people to acquire their cards, as they will soon be the only form of ID for voter registration.
This follows the confirmation by the EC that it has decided to scrap the guarantor system and rather now use the Ghana Card for the compilation of a voter register for the 2024 general election.
Speaking at the ‘Let the Citizens Know’ series in Accra last Thursday, the Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, said the commission was aware that the NIA had some challenges in issuing and distributing Ghana cards to Ghanaians, but those hitches were surmountable
She said the EC had already engaged the NIA, which had given an assurance that the cards would be issued to Ghanaians to help them register.
“We have engaged the NIA and it has assured us that the cards will be issued to Ghanaians to help them register.
“More to the point, we have two clear years to the 2024 elections and so people will not be disenfranchised when we use only the Ghana Card for registration.
“We thus call on the NIA to make the process of acquiring the cards easier and more efficient to ensure that all eligible voters are able to get their cards and be able to register,” she said.
No more guarantor system
Mrs Mensa, explaining why the EC had decided to do away with the guarantor system, said the system, which allowed registered voters to serve as witnesses to authenticate the nationality of prospective registrants, was fraught with challenges, as it created a window for minors and foreigners to infiltrate the voters register.
She said despite the guarantor system not being a better way of identifying prospective registrants’ citizenship, it had been used for about three decades because of the absence of a national identification document such as the one issued by the NIA, adding that now that there was a national identification card, there was no need to hang on to the guarantor system.
“We do not believe that we should still keep the guarantor system when we have the Ghana Card as the best way of determining who is a Ghanaian. People take advantage of the guarantor system and turn themselves into contractors during voter registration. This is not a system we should encourage at all, going forward,” she said.
Source : graphiconline.com
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