We're not involved in deletion of NHIS voters – Lawyer

Although the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has initiated proceedings to delete names of voters who registered onto the register of voters using the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards, as ordered by the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs who sued the EC in court over the credibility of the register have not been involved in the process, Frank Davies, lawyer for Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako, has said.

The EC was ordered by the apex court to delete names of some 56,000 persons who registered using the NHIS cards and allow them to reregister using appropriate means of identification, following a suit against it by two plaintiffs, Abu Ramadan, former National Youth Organiser of the People’s National Convention (PNC), and one Evans Nimako.

On Tuesday July 12, the EC announced that the names of the deleted persons would be published in the dailies and at its district offices for affected persons to be re-registered from the 18-28 July, 2016.

But speaking in an interview with Emefa Apawu on 505 on Class91.3FM Wednesday July 13, Frank Davies said: “As a lawyer for the plaintiffs who went to court, I think we are much more of an interested party together with the EC.

“Whatever modalities they are going through to do what the court ordered, I think by ordinary and best practices we should also be informed and be part of the process, but till date we haven’t heard from the EC,” Mr Davies said.

“We have not been involved in anything so I don’t think I want to derive any satisfaction with what they have been doing.

“I have not been informed by my clients that they have been invited by the EC; myself as a lawyer I have not been invited so I really don’t know what they are doing. I would have thought that by best practice, I believe at least at a very minimum, they would engage us in what they are doing but, as usual, maybe they are carrying out an independent exercise.”

Mr Davies further said: “The EC is not doing the exercise for themselves, that is what they should understand. They are monitoring elections for the country Ghana, it is the integrity of the elections we are all interested in, and you cannot sit down there as a player and coach and be misbehaving and be doing what they are doing.”