We’ll help EC delete ‘NHIS voters’ - Abu Ramadan

Mr Abu Ramadan, a former National Youth Organiser of the People’s National Convention (PNC) has said he and his team of lawyers are willing to collaborate with the Electoral Commission (EC) to identify and remove the names of individuals who used National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards to register as voters, if the commission commits to a transparent process.

According to Mr Ramadan, the EC needs to be open enough in order for the process to be successful.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday July 5 ordered the EC to implement the orders it gave on May 5 this year regarding voters who got registered by using NHIS cards as national ID.

In that ruling, connected to a suit filed by Mr Ramadan and one Evans Nimako, against the EC, the Supreme Court directed the election management body to delete from the register of voters the names of the dead, minors, as well as all voters who registered using their NHIS cards. The same court had ruled almost two years ago that the NHIS cards were invalid for voter registration.

But the ruling was given several interpretations. The EC had said, after the May 5 ruling that after a cursory look at the directive, it was convinced that the court did not instruct it to delete the names of NHIS card holders who used such cards to get registered onto the electoral roll.

But the plaintiffs went back to the court for further clarification, following which the EC was instructed to submit to the court the list of all voters who registered using NHIS documents.

The EC complied by submitting a list of 56,000 names to the court on July 4, 2016, which paved the way for the court to rule on the matter on Tuesday.

Class FM’s reporter Paa Kwesi Parker-Wilson, who was in court, reported that the highest court of the land “has ordered that the EC should take immediate steps to implement the court decision in the May 5 ruling and to also delete the names that were sent to the court as persons who registered onto the register of voters with NHIS IDs as well as take steps to delete names that were not submitted to the court but were also found to have registered with the NHIS card”.

Mr Ramadan, who was reacting to the verdict in an interview with Class News, further indicated that his team will gladly offer its services to aid the EC get a credible register to ensure a credible outcome at this year’s elections. “We will help the commission identify those persons if there is transparency to remove those persons and afford them the opportunity to re-register if they are really Ghanaians.”

For him, the court’s order supersedes other guidelines and the EC must immediately begin the process to formulate laws to carry out the exercise. “The Electoral Commission should be ready to make the process transparent and open up so that [we can monitor]. This order even takes precedence over C.I. 91, so that is to say promulgate a new law to look at how to delete the names,” he stressed.