The Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) and the Electoral Commission (EC) agreed to adopt the Ghana Card for continuous registration, according to Citizen Ato Dadzie, the general secretary of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).
This, he claimed, was because, according to Ghanaian law, it was the best method of identifying a citizen and the proper starting point for getting someone’s name on the electoral roll.
The Ghana Card was decided upon after lengthy deliberations, according to Mr. Dadzie, a member of the Committee of political parties assembled by the EC to deliberate on the Legislative Instrument, who was speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra.
According to Mr. Dadzie, the EC wished to start continuous registration, which would enable eligible Ghanaians who had reached the age of 18 or for some other reason had not been able to register the chance to do so. Political parties were given copies of the CI to study at IPAC.
According to him, the parties provided their input, and on March 16, 2022, a committee was constituted with three members from the other parties and one representative from each of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Concerns concerning the use of the Ghana Card were brought up during the meeting, according to Mr. Dadzie, but after discussion it was decided that this was the best course of action. At the meeting on June 1, 2022, the work on the new CI was put to rest.
Government
He claimed that it was now the responsibility of the government to make sure that the National Identification Authority (NIA) had the necessary funding and assistance so that all Ghanaians, particularly those who had reached the age of 18 but lacked the card, could obtain one and register to vote.
“It was incomprehensible that the NIA, after all these years, has not been able to give every Ghanaian a card. If the EC could utilize 88 days to register nearly 17 million voters in 2020. He urged them to go more quickly and finish the project.
According to Mr. Dadzie, stakeholders came to the decision that the Ghana Card should be the source document for continuous registration after lengthy discussions at the IPAC with the EC.
He asserted that any political party wishing to lead the nation but not supporting the usage of verifiable identity systems like the Ghana Card was unworthy of the support of the populace given that such identification is currently in vogue on a worldwide scale.
He stated that the Ghana Card’s issuing was a major step forward in the nation’s effort to compile a database of every citizen from the ground up, a system that would address issues like minors, non-Ghanaians, and double registration.
