Dr. Bawumia charges EC to implement Supreme Court order

The Vice Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party(NPP),Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia,has asked the Electoral Commission to immediately implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on the voters’ register, since election is only six months away.

The Supreme Court in a ruling Thursday, described the nation’s electoral register as “ reasonably inaccurate ” barely six months to a major presidential and parliamentary elections in November.

The apex court made the statement in its ruling Thursday, in a case brought before it by a former National Youth Organizer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan and one Evans Nimako, who were challenging the credibility of the voters’ register.

The Court asked the EC to expunge from the current register the names of person who registered using the National Health Insurance Scheme card as a proof of identity.

It also asked the Commission to give opportunity those who are qualified to re-register.

Addressing students of the Accra Polytechnic in Accra on Thursday, Dr. Bawumia said the

ruling vindicates the NPP.

“Today, the Supreme Court finally ruled that infact the voters’ register is not a credible register. We have said this for a long time so we expect the Electoral Commission to very quickly and immediately put together modalities for addressing this issue and removing the names of all the categories specified by the Supreme Court.”

He further charged the EC to ensure that the ruling is fully adhered to.

“I think whichever way you look at it, if you are going to do this in a most efficient way, you probably will need a new register,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission has explained that it has already initiated processes

to effect the court’s ruling.

Addressing a news conference after the Supreme Court ruling, a Deputy Chairperson of the EC, Georgina Opoku Amankwa, said although the Commission was yet to get a copy of the full judgment, it already has a programme in place to institute what the court has ordered.

Mrs Opoku Amankwah, who failed to give a detailed plan of how the commission is dealing with the names of dead persons and those who registered with NHIS card said, “the good thing is that, what the Supreme Court is asking the EC to do is something that we have already put in place a

yet to be found out in the judgment itself which we are yet to be furnished with.”programme to deal with. The nitty grit ties are

Story by: Michael Creg Afful

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