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'Election is serious business, not for jokers' - Ex-EC Chief Director warns

By MyJoyOnline
Politics 'Election is serious business, not for jokers' - Ex-EC Chief Director warns
JUN 24, 2016 LISTEN

A former Chief Director of the Electoral Commission (EC) says the organisation of elections is a "serious business that must not be toyed with."

Kwame Damoah Agyemang in an interview with Joy News warned that the failure by the Electoral Commission to implement a Supreme Court judgement could plunge the nation into chaos.

The Supreme Court on May 5, ordered the Electoral Commission to delete from the electoral roll, names of persons who have not established qualification to be on the register. This included deceased persons, minors, and persons who used the NHIA cards to register.

The EC indicated after the court's judgement in May that it was preparing to clean the voter's register but said it was not going to delete names of persons who registered with NHIS cards.

After several weeks of different interpretations of the judgement, the plaintiff of the case, a former Youth Organizer of the People's National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan prayed the apex court for clarification.

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Former Youth Organizer of the People's National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan

On Thursday, June 23, a panel of judges chaired by Chief Justice Georgina Wood, upbraided the Commission for putting its procedure ahead of their judgement and ordered it to produce the names of the NHIS carders on the electoral roll by June 29.

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Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood
The court gave the Electoral Commission six days to produce a comprehensive list of all persons who registered with National Health Insurance cards.

It also ordered that the EC produces a detailed plan on how it will delete those names from the roll and have them reregistered.

The former Chief Director of the Electoral Commission said the orders of the court can easily be carried out by the commission.

According to him, the mode of identification of every applicant of the voter's register is stored electronically by the Commission.

He said: "If they are desirous of extracting the names, it is just a matter of tasking their IT experts to go into their storage and extract the data for them."

He urged that something as crucial as the voter's register, must not be toyed with.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com| Akosua Asiedua Akuffo| [email protected]

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