‘Ghana card to prevent foreigners from voting’ – Jean Mensah

• Posted on March 1, 2023March 1, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson, Jean Mensa, has stated that using the Ghana Card as the sole means of identification will prevent foreigners and minors from being added to the voter’s register, asserting that only eligible Ghanaians should be allowed to vote in the country.

The EC boss told Parliament yesterday that the draft Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations 2023 will prevent unqualified people from influencing the country’s elections.

According to her, the draft constitutional instrument’s proposal to adopt the Ghana Card as the sole source of identification for any person who wishes to register as a voter will do away with the guarantor system, which hitherto allowed a registered voter to vouch for the citizenship and age of prospective applicants.

She explained that the reason is that over the years the guarantor system has presented the commission with several challenges, adding, “Unfortunately, we were unable to discard it much earlier due to the absence of a national identification card such as the one issued by the National Identification Authority (NIA).”

Making further elucidation on the issue, Mrs. Mensa said the guarantor system opens the door for registered voters or guarantor contractors to guarantee and vouch for persons who are less than 18 years old.

“Secondly, it allows these guarantors to vouch for persons who are not citizens of Ghana. Such unqualified persons, usually minors and foreigners, use the door of the guarantor system to try to get onto our register.

“It is important to note that to rid the register of minors and foreigners in the year 2020, the EC established District Registration Review Committees which worked for several days and weeks in all districts to expunge the names of minors and foreigners from the register,” she noted.

She disclosed that the commission was able to successfully expunge close to 40,000 minors and foreigners from the register during the registration exercise.

Significance

The EC chairperson said it had been argued that this number (40,000) is not significant, but indicated that the commission begged to differ, asserting, “unqualified persons on our roll is one too many.”

“In short, it is possible to have these 40,000 illegal persons determining the future of our dear country, and collectively we must not allow this. I must add that the work of the District Registration Review Committee came at a huge cost,” she submitted.

“It is an unnecessary, wasteful and time consuming exercise. As a county we should not continue along this route. Truth be told, the guarantor system was not the best under any circumstances but we did not have other options since all significant number of persons did not possess the Ghana Card at the time,” Mrs. Mensa intimated.

Disclosure

The EC chairperson revealed that in the last registration exercise, 10 million Ghanaians used the Ghana Card to back their citizenship at the time of registration.

“Today, with over 16 million Ghanaians in possession of the Ghana Card, and with NIA’s assurance that it will print and distribute the remaining cards to registrants in a matter of weeks, we do not believe that we will disenfranchise persons by enforcing the policy requirement of using the Ghana Card to prove one’s eligibility,” she pointed out.

She added that by using the Ghana Card as the main source document for the continuous registration, the commission will be conforming to the Legislative Instrument passed by Parliament.

“The National Identity Register Regulations Legislative Instrument 2011 (Regulation 7 (1) states that, a national identity card issued to an individual shall be used for a number of transactions where identification is required. One of the mandatory transactions stated in Regulation 7 (1) j is the registration of voters. As such, Parliament by its own assertion legitimised the Ghana Card as the sole document to prove a person’s citizenship.

“As mentioned earlier, although the Ghana Card was not the only required document to prove a person’s eligibility in 2020, at the end of exercise, over 60% or about 10 million of registered voters used the Ghana Card as the main source of identification. This means that two years ago, some 10 million Ghanaians registered with the Ghana Card,” she said.

She added that the commission was reliably informed that over 17 million Ghanaians have registered for the card, and that about 16 million Ghana Cards have been issued.

“On the strength of these numbers, we are convinced that the 1.5 million applicants we are expecting to register by the end of 2023, following the last registration exercise in 2020, are likely to already possess the Ghana Card,” she stated.

By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House