NPP raises red flags over EC biometric register flaws

Jake Obetsebi Lamptey

The New Patriotic Party is not convinced the Electoral Commission is taking the right path in the biometric registration process.

The opposition party believes that the new biometric process, if not implemented properly would plunge the country into ashes.

Party Chairman, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey told Joy News the process is flawed in many significant respects.

He contended the register has no verifiability during voting and that is a recipe for disaster.

“A number of African countries have gone in for biometric register and have not insisted on verifiability at the point of voting and they have ended up post-election with violence and even almost civil wars. Ghana does not need to go that way.

“All we are all trying to do is to improve our process; get our democracy better and better; get the elections right and start dealing with all the other institutions that we need to build to get a proper working environment.” He stated.

He said data for the biometric registration must be collected simultaneously in all the 21,000 polling stations across the country instead of the region by region strategy being adopted by the Electoral Commission and which is opened for manipulation.

“We feel that if you are going to do a biometric register and you are doing it with a photograph and with finger prints you should aim for the international quality norms which means that the camera should be taking pictures at 10 mega pixels and not at the two mega pixels that the commission is asking for because the two mega pixels is even worse than many mobile telephones being used today,” he observed.

Obetsebi Lamptey was even more worried with how the data will be transferred from the collection point to the centre saying the process lends itself to manipulation.

“Why should Ghana spend $60 million on producing a register that will end up being so flawed,” he stated.

The NPP sent a three paged petition to the Electoral Commission on the issue and subsequently met with David Kangah, Deputy Commissioner at the EC on the matter.

He asked the EC to involve all the parties in order to resolve the problems.

Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana