Don’t scrap guarantor system – Afari-Gyan advises EC

In a statement made exclusively to the Daily Graphic, he said the contention of the EC that the guarantor system was not robust and, therefore, the Ghana Card should be the sole means of registration was untenable.

According to Dr Afari-Gyan, as far as the National Identification Authority (NIA) allowed the guarantor regime in the registration for the Ghana Card, nothing prevented the EC from doing the same for the voter registration exercise and making that system more robust as it wanted it.

Last month, the Chairperson of the EC, Jean Adukwei Mensa, told Parliament, as part of the pre-laying of the CI, that the Ghana Card as the sole registration document would ensure that only eligible Ghanaians registered as voters.

In his new critique, he said he was not against the use of the Ghana Card and did not also disagree with the EC that the Ghana Card was of great importance and would go a long way to sanitise the electoral roll

It was his contention that the Ghana Card did not bestow citizenship on anyone but rather validated that citizenship; therefore, making the Ghana Card the sole means of registration meant the EC was trying to define those without the card as not citizens of Ghana eligible to vote.

“In my view, as of now, it cannot be reasonably assumed that every Ghanaian of voting age has the Ghana Card, or can get one well ahead of the next elections,” he said.

“In fact, given that even under continuous registration there is a cut-off period, during which time one can register as a voter but cannot vote in the following election, I think it is far too early yet to make a fetish of Ghana Card as the only basis for registering a Ghanaian citizen as a voter,” Dr Afari-Gyan averred.