EC to create new register that cost $80m – Haruna Iddrisu alleges

Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader, is claiming that the Electoral Commission of Ghana is seeking to compile another voters register with the base document being the new Ghana card.

According to him, his outfit will kick against such moves by the Commission because the new register is a wasteful expenditure and will disenfranchise a lot of Ghanaians who have not registered or secured their Ghana cards yet.

Addressing the press in Parliament on July 12, 2022, the Tamale South MP said:

“Our understanding as we pick it up is that the EC is desperately planning to discard the 2020 voters register and replace it with a new voter register, which will cost taxpayers and the people of Ghana 80 million dollars thereabout.

“So in 2020, the Electoral Commission against all sound and technical advice replaced the 2016 biometric voters’ register – you all recall that – this decision was without consensus by all political parties, civil society and critical election stakeholders.”

“In pursuit of that political agenda the EC undertook a new voter registration exercise which currently puts the voter population of our country at 17,041,340 voters,” Haruna Iddrisu stated.

“Our understanding is that the Electoral Commission is seeking to make the national ID card the only source of justification to register onto the voter ID register.

“Our concern primarily is that in the past, since 1993, voter registration exercises that have been undertaken, you normally have the provision of a guarantor of other persons guaranteeing for persons to get onto the voter register and so far as it is established that they are Ghanaian, and are of age, and of sound mind, and to participate in Ghana’s electoral process to vote and be voted for,” Iddrisu stressed.

The government came under intense criticism after the creation of new voter register ahead of the 2020 polls.