The Electoral Commission (EC) is to replace the voters register and the voter’s identity cards before the 2004 general elections.
The move is to rectify anomalies such as having names of deceased persons in the register, multiple registration and impersonation during voting, to engender public confidence in the electoral process.
Mr Kwadwo Sarfo-Kantanka, the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of operations, who disclosed this in an interview in Accra yesterday said what this means is that the existing register and the voter’s ID cards will be discarded.
He disclosed that the new system will be imbued with certain security features that will stave off weaknesses and problems that have characterised the current one since its inception in 1995.
Mr Sarfo-Kantanka, who did not reveal the amount involved in the exercise, said the EC has already submitted its budget requirement to the Ministry of Finance and discussions are on-going.
“It is our decision that if it gets started around the last quarter of this year the whole exercise could be finished by the first quarter of next year,” he said.
“Everybody has been complaining and we ourselves have not shied away from the fact that the current voters register is not in the best of shapes”, he stressed.
Speaking on the operations of the political parties, Mr Sarfo-Kantanka said that for a political party to be effective, it must meet all the requirements of the law or be sanctioned.
He said initially, it was the position of the EC to go softly so as to nurture them to grow steadily with time but pointed out that some of the parties have been up and doing.
In this direction, he said the EC will shortly embark on a vigorous campaign to enforce the political party law which requires parties among others to have offices manned by officials at the national, regional and constituency levels.
On the funding of political parties from the national coffers, he said before the general election in 2000, the general consensus was that people were clamouring for it.
He said there was also a provision for the funding of political parties by the state in the original political parties bill that was sent to the previous political administration to be passed into a law but was finally deleted with the explanation that the economy could not cater for its implementation.
The Electoral Commission (EC) is to replace the voters register and the voter’s identity cards before the 2004 general elections.
The move is to rectify anomalies such as having names of deceased persons in the register, multiple registration and impersonation during voting, to engender public confidence in the electoral process.
Mr Kwadwo Sarfo-Kantanka, the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of operations, who disclosed this in an interview in Accra yesterday said what this means is that the existing register and the voter’s ID cards will be discarded.
He disclosed that the new system will be imbued with certain security features that will stave off weaknesses and problems that have characterised the current one since its inception in 1995.
Mr Sarfo-Kantanka, who did not reveal the amount involved in the exercise, said the EC has already submitted its budget requirement to the Ministry of Finance and discussions are on-going.
“It is our decision that if it gets started around the last quarter of this year the whole exercise could be finished by the first quarter of next year,” he said.
“Everybody has been complaining and we ourselves have not shied away from the fact that the current voters register is not in the best of shapes”, he stressed.
Speaking on the operations of the political parties, Mr Sarfo-Kantanka said that for a political party to be effective, it must meet all the requirements of the law or be sanctioned.
He said initially, it was the position of the EC to go softly so as to nurture them to grow steadily with time but pointed out that some of the parties have been up and doing.
In this direction, he said the EC will shortly embark on a vigorous campaign to enforce the political party law which requires parties among others to have offices manned by officials at the national, regional and constituency levels.
On the funding of political parties from the national coffers, he said before the general election in 2000, the general consensus was that people were clamouring for it.
He said there was also a provision for the funding of political parties by the state in the original political parties bill that was sent to the previous political administration to be passed into a law but was finally deleted with the explanation that the economy could not cater for its implementation.
