NAPO: Was EC planning to “eat or drink” registration exercise?

Manhyia South NPP Member of Parliament, Hon Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has stated that the limited registration exercise which is being carried out by the Electoral Commission without the involvement of all the political parties and other stakeholders is a violation of 9 laws in the CI72.

According to him, the CI72 law which empowers the Electoral Commission to continue with the registration explained that the exercise should either be national registration or limited registration.

He elaborated that the law allows the limited registration exercise to take place at electoral areas and with the national registration it should take place at the polling stations because the law states registration should take place at where elections are conducted.

He however quizzed “will the EC’s districts offices be polling stations because every registration centre should be a polling station? This is against the law; before the EC turns a place for registration, the law says they should check for suitability and whether it is accessible to everyone and this law too has been violated”.

“The place where the registration is taking place is a restricted area and it is not everybody who can go there to register. The law says that 14 days before you start with the registration the EC must gazette to all the political parties,” he stated.

He also mentioned that the EC violated the law which mandates them to give the names of all the officials carrying out this registration exercise to the various political parties for them to examine the officials.

He again said the EC failed to give 21 days of notice before it started the limited registration exercise, adding there should have been authority note to the all the political parties to participate in the exercise but there was no such notice.

Still on the law, the NPP MP said the EC should have per the CI72 given detailed copies of the registered voters to the political parties on daily basis of the registration but the EC has promised to give the copies to the parties after a month.

To him, the major aspect of the law which the EC has violated is that the registration was not conducted in the open to make the public identify the true identity of the registered voters; thus “if you write their names in secrecy, how can we know the true identity of the registered voters?”

He however alleged that the violation of the law is orchestrated by one person at the commission, adding it is the same person who nearly caused chaos in this country during the 2012 elections.

NAPO as he is popularly called said on Okay FM’s “Ade Akye Abia” Morning Show that he could not fathom the motive behind EC’s limited registration which was done in secrecy; quizzing sarcastically that “were they planning to eat or drink it?”