By Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and leader of government business/Majority leader in Ghana’s Parliament, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has expressed grave concern about the use of the Ghana Card as the sole form of identification.
He expressed his reservations about the Electoral Commission’s (EC) proposal to use the Ghana Card as the sole document for voter registration in the 2024 elections.
The recently held limited Voter registration exercise exposed the weakness in the use of the Ghana Card as the sole form of identification for registration.
Citing the ongoing challenges in the issuance of Ghana Cards by the National Identification Authority (NIA), Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu argued that it would be premature to rely solely on the Ghana Card for voter registration.
The Suame lawmaker emphasized that many eligible voters have not yet been issued the card, and some who have registered for it are still waiting to receive it.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu noted that the EC’s initial decision to link voter registration for the District Level Elections (DLE) to the Ghana Card had faced criticism due to the exclusion of eligible voters who lacked the card.
He reiterated that making the Ghana Card the sole document for voter registration would create similar issues.
“So many people don’t have the Ghana card and some of the people who have registered to get the card have not been given the card. And given the pendency of the DLE to have tied registration to the Ghana card knowing that some of the eligible Ghanaians have not been registered to get the Ghana cards…to say that you were restricting it to the Ghana card was going to be problematic.
If they can assure that every eligible Ghanaian will be provided with the Ghana card before 2024 then you can bring the instrument based on the Ghana card. But if you admit that not every eligible Ghanaian has been registered or can be registered then it becomes difficult to tie the registration solely to the Ghana card,” he stated.