Registering SHS students in schools illegal, against C.I. 91 – Muntaka

The Member of Parliament for Asawase, Mr Muntaka Mukabarak, has said the decision by the Electoral Commission of Ghana to create registration centres in all the senior high schools to register SHS students is against Constitutional Instrument (CI) 91 that is governing this year’s elections.

According to him, C.I. 91 stipulates that the EC will need to gazette such a decision 21 days before the registration but that has not been done, yet, the registration of the students is starting today, Friday, 10 July 2020.

He told Accra100.5FM’s parliamentary correspondent Richard Appiah Sarpong in an interview that: “This morning, we are hearing directives that the Electoral Commission is saying they are going to create centres in secondary schools to register the children, this is against the C.I.91”.

“The C.I.91 is very clear that if you want to create a polling station, you have not gazette it 21 days before the start of the registration”.

“Now you are going to open registration centres in secondary schools when you have not gazetted it, what do you want to do. You want to create confusion.”

The EC announced on Thursday that it will start registering final-year senior high school students for the voter ID card from tomorrow.

The EC took the decision after an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held in Accra.

The election management body said it received a letter from the Ghana Education Service (GES) requesting it to capture the students in the exercise.

The EC started the voter registration exercise on 29 June 2020.

The students went back to school about month ago after the President eased restrictions a bit so they could study for their final exams.