The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is advocating for the prosecution leadership of the Electoral Commission (EC) over the compilation of a new voters register.
A Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Otokunor argued on Citi TV’s Point of View that, the Commission in its quest to compile a new electoral roll caused the country significant financial loss.
He insisted that his party’s position is solidified by data from the registration exercise.
“Any serious government should be looking at taking the Electoral Commission on for causing financial loss to the state. Clearly, if they had gone through the limited registration exercise which we had advised to register some 600,000 people in addition to the old register, we will be hovering around this same figure we have. Perhaps we wouldn’t have spent over a billion cedis for this whole exercise.”
Meanwhile, Director of Research and Elections for the NPP, Evans Nimako argues on the same platform, that the new register is a great improvement on previous registers.
“We think this is a clean exercise that has been conducted. I think for us, the numbers that we have is a clear representation of those Ghanaians who are eligible to vote in the election of President and Members of Parliament”, he said.
Many concerned stakeholders, particularly the opposition NDC have downplayed the Electoral Commission’s (EC) defence for the compilation of a new register arguing that the numbers recorded during the mass voter registration exercise would not have been so different if the old register was used.
The EC claims over 19.8 million voters would have been recorded if an entirely new register was not prepared.
Provisional figures from the electoral management body put registered voters at over 16.6 million pending the verified data.
