56,000 NHIS registrants surprised me - EC boss

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei has stated that she was surprised at the 56,000 NHIS registrants found on the voters’ register because she thought the number would have been more.

“I was surprised at the figure because I was expecting more. I was expecting more because of all the rhetoric that had happened around it,” Mrs. Osei said in an interview on Good Evening Ghana on Metro TV on Thursday.

The Supreme Court in July this year ordered the EC to delete names of persons who registered with the national insurance card from the voters’ register.

The order was made in a case in which former National Youth Organiser of the People’s National Convention, Abu Ramadan challenged the credibility of the voters’ register.

A ten-day period was provided for NHIS registrants to re-register which was extended by seven days after over 30,000 people failed to turn up to re-register.

However, Mrs. Osei told host Paul Adom Otchere that its possible names of some people who registered with NHIS card might still be on the register.

“It’s possible because of the human part...it was a manual process…that is why the Supreme Court said that delete all those you have submitted including those you will find...the information was not available on the database, it was only available on the actual form 1A that were provided when people go and register. It has a column for National Identity Number [where the type of ID used was indicated].”