Only NIA can validate voter roll - Nduom

Any attempts to compile or verify the voters’ register will be fruitless unless it is based on information from the National Identification Authority (NIA), founder of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom has suggested.

“Any voters’ register that is not put together based on the NIA database is not correct and will not be correct,” he said.

Various opposition parties and some pressure groups are clamouring for the validation of the voters’ register ahead of the November polls. To Dr Nduom, the process will be futile if there is no proper benchmark to which the process will be based.

He holds the opinion that the only body mandated by law to determine the nationality and particulars of any individual is the NIA and the EC has no authority over that.

In an interview with Emefa Apawu on Class FM’s 505 news programme on Friday 15 April 2016, Dr Ndoum said: “There is no such thing as cleaning the register. What are you going to clean it against?” h asked.

“The only legitimate source to use to clean, is the NIA database, otherwise EC does not have authority to say I am Togolese, someone else is Nigerian or this person is a Ghanaian. EC has no such legal authority and only NIA has that mandate”.

“Without that, they can do anything they want, but it will not match my standard,” he stated.

The issue of the voters’ register triggered a recent demonstration in the Ashanti Region to press home demands for the EC to validate the current roll.

The demonstration was organised in collaboration with other pressure groups, including the Movement for Change (MFC) and the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG).

Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, a member of the MFC, told Class News on April 5 that the 77-page report by the EC's panel of experts that collated views on the register, recommended that the register be cleaned, but the EC had failed to comply – a situation, he said, prompted the demonstration.

“By our estimation, there are about 1.5 million, who are not to be in the register, comprising minors, dead people, and foreigners,” he stated.