Registration Exercise: What arrangements have you made for coronavirus patients? - Pratt asks EC

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) not to exclude patients in various hospitals from the ongoing new voters' registration exercise.

The registration exercise began on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 and will last for 38 days

EC Chairperson's Message To Ghanaians

Prior to the exercise, the EC Chairperson Jean Mensa urged all Ghanaians to participate and report any anomalies to the Commission.

''Dear citizens, your participation in, and monitoring of, the voters’ registration exercise will be critical to maintaining the integrity of the Register. Please participate in the Voters Registration Exercise. Monitor the process at your registration centre. Draw the attention of the Commission to any anomalies you might observe in the process. Together, we will arrive at a comprehensive and credible Voters Register," she urged.

"We will like to assure you that, as a Commission, our rationale for compiling a new register, is not to disenfranchise any eligible voter. On the contrary, it is to ensure that all our citizens who qualify are afforded the opportunity to register and cast their votes. The Commission is of the view that only eligible citizens should be given the right to determine who governs and leads our dear country, and we are determined to ensure that no one is left behind.

"We also deem it necessary to assure you that our decisions and actions are taken without fear or favour and without recourse to any individual or group of persons. We have a duty to our citizens to ensure that it is only the will of the people that stands," she said at the press conference, Monday evening.

What Are The Arrangements For Patients?

Kwesi Pratt, speaking on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', sought to find out the EC's arrangements to ensure all patients of eligible voting age partake in the registration exercise.

According to him, the fact that a person is sick doesn't negate his or her voting right, therefore they deserve to register their names.

“What are the processes for those who have been infected with COVID-19 and various diseases, and are in the hospitals? How can they also register their names? Because when you're sick, your right to vote has not been taken away from you,” he said.

Mr. Pratt further called on the EC to intensify public announcement on their cluster system of the registration process.

“It is against the law if the public announcement is not broad for people to know and understand what to do. It contravenes the process,” he told the sit-in host Nana Yaw Kesseh.

Watch video below: