I won’t carry any agency’s burden – Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has said he has refrained from commenting on the controversies that have surrounded the credibility of the register of voters because he has a lot of work on his hands to deal with, a situation that does not allow him to involve himself in the work of other bodies.

There have been controversies over the credibility of the register of voters ahead of this year’s elections.

The Electoral Commission (EC) is at the moment implementing an order given to it by the Supreme Court to delete all names of persons who registered onto the roll using the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards as proof of identification and allow them to reregister.

The court had ruled previously that NHIS cards did not offer sufficient proof of nationality.

The EC has so far deleted names of some 56,000 voters who registered using the NHIS and has announced that it will reregister these persons.

President Mahama, answering questions on the issues surrounding the register on Radio Savannah in Tamale Thursday,July 14, said: “I have enough issues to deal with without taking other people’s issues on my head. And so you have not heard me comment about the voters’ register or the Supreme Court ruling or anything.

“I think the two institutions are good enough to be able to handle the issues that confront them. We have an EC that is well respected and I believe that they will do the right thing.

“I believe with the advantage we have in terms of biometric registration and verification, even if you didn’t have a register that was perfect …I believe that even if their names are on that register and we are vigilant at the polls, nobody can use them to his advantage because we will all vote with our fingerprints registered so I believe these institutions know how to work these things out.”

Mr. Mahama stressed: “I have enough work on my plate to do so I’m not going to carry any body’s responsibilities on my head.”