Ghana Card is proof of citizenship for electoral registration targeting persons turning 18 years

Ghana’s Electoral Commission has clarified the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) on proof of citizenship for purposes of electoral registration.

The CI in which the Ghana Card is listed as the only proof of citizenship for purposes of electoral registration will target only persons turning 18 years, and those who could not register in the last exercise.

The exercise will deal with deception associated with voter registration, adding it will be a continuous registration.

Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the commission of planning to compile a new voter’s register for the 2024 general election, with the Ghana Card as the only source document.

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, said any move by the EC to compile a new voter’s register with the Ghana Card solely as the mode of identification would not bode well for the country, especially when the EC had already expended huge sums of money to compile a new register which was used for the 2020 general election.

The EC debunked the assertion by the NDC and said the new C.I was only meant to regulate continuous registration, with the Ghana Card as the source document.

“We are not compiling a new voter’s register. The one we compiled in 2020 is a credible one, a very good register so we are not dispensing it,” the Director of Electoral Services of the EC, Dr Serebour Quaicoe, told the media.

Meanwhile, in Parliament, the new C.I laid by the EC caused heated debates, with the Minority calling for the EC to come and explain the rationale for the use of the Ghana Card as the only source document.

At Parliament’s sitting on July 21, 2020 the First Deputy Minority Chief Whip, Ibrahim Ahmed, said it was necessary for the EC to brief the House on the new C.I. to erase any “controversial issue of mistrust.”

For his part, the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, rejected the call by the Minority, describing it as premature, adding that the next general election was not yet due.

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