Parties urging ‘NHIS voters’ to lie

Activists of some political parties are on a house-to-house exercise prevailing upon ‘NHIS voters’ to come out and falsely accuse the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) of going ahead to expunge their names from the electoral roll despite not presenting health insurance documents as identification during their registration as voters in 2012.

The allegation came from the Public Relations Director of the EC, Eric Dzakapsu, in an interview on Accra100.5FM’s morning show, Ghana Yensom, on Thursday July 21.

He said he was on a television programme on the night of Wednesday July 20, when some viewers called in, to inform him of their experiences with such activists.

Responding to a question from show host Chief Jerry Forson if there were any truths in lamentations by some parties that the EC had not served them with copies of the names of more than 56,000 voters who had been removed from the register, Mr. Dzakpasu denied the charge, saying: “Yesterday, the complaint I received from some of the areas outside Greater Accra was that some [agents of] political parties were moving from house to house with the voters’ register, telling people to go and say that they did not use NHIS cards to [register]. If they don’t have that list, how could they have been going round…?”

He was certain that the commission had supplied each of the parties with soft copies of the list of deleted names ahead of the exhibition of the register of voters.

Mr. Dzakpasu said at the point of registration, the time and date of registration, the ID used and other details were all captured on Form 1A, hence the EC could not have conjured the names of the NHIS cards registrants, which have been published.

According to Mr. Dzakpasu, anyone whose name is no more on the register but feels strongly that he used a valid national ID for registration should visit the office of the EC with such proof in his district for verification, while advising that all others who have been affected by the deletion should present a valid national identification document or get two eligible Ghanaian voters to act as guarantors to affect their re-registration.

The EC was on July 5 ordered by the Supreme Court to delete the names of all voters who used NHIS cards to register unto the poll roll in 2012 as the health insurance document was no concrete proof of Ghanaian citizenship.

The court had earlier asked the EC to also remove the names of deceased persons and those of minors from the register.