NIA can assist EC compile credible voters' register

The Chief Executive Officer of the National Identification Authority, Dr William Ahadzi says the Authority can assist the Electoral Commission to conduct credible and incontestable elections in the country.

That, he said, the authority can do by generating a reliable list of eligible voters for the EC.

Speaking at a forum organised by policy think tank, Danquah Institute, to discuss the possibility of Ghana adopting electronic voting, Dr Ahadzi said the NIA was immune from double registration and could therefore help to deal with the issues of double registration that dogged the last elections.

In the run-up to the 2008 elections, some political parties raised allegations of bloated registers in some parts of the country intended to sway the elections in a particular direction.

Since the, many have called for efforts to ensure the voters register is credible.

“Because we are collecting data on all Ghanaians, particularly those who are six years and above, it is fairly easy for us to generate a list of all Ghanaians of 18 years and above at any given time, depending on what the demands or requirements are. [There] is a quick way of querying the system and it will throw up the names, the numbers and then the photographs of all 18-year-olds and then we can hand that list over to the Electoral Commission to validate their own list,” Dr Ahadzi explained.

The NIA boss proposed the setting up of a standing technical committee by the EC to co-operate with the authority in this regard.

Dr Ahadzi also suggested the incorporation of personal identification numbers of individuals into the voter ID. “Once that is done, in the national database, we have all the information about an individual, all you need to do is to give us their pin number and we can establish or re-establish their identity if there are questions around that”.

Ultimately, the nation, according to him, should be gravitating towards using the national ID as the instrument for voting.

Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyononline.com/Ghana