EC Submits List In A Dramatic Manner

By Ethel Mensah
([email protected])
The Electoral Commission (EC), yesterday, fulfilled the Supreme Court order to, by June 29, furnish it with a comprehensive list of all persons who registered with National Health Insurance cards in 2012.

Even though the figure was not immediately known, pollster Ben Ephson told Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa FM that a list of 30,458 names was presented.

He gave the regional breakdown as Central 14,000; Volta 3,884; Ashanti 7,106; Eastern 2,383; Northern 301; Upper East 193; Upper West 253 and Western 2,315.

The submission was a dramatic one, when stranded journalists who were waiting patiently to see the EC Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, disappointedly saw a gentleman from the Commission carrying a medium-sized “Ghana Must Go” bag which contained the documents.

The gentleman, after he had tendered the exhibits at the Court Registry, and was on his way out, upon seeing the media became panicky, and as such, was reluctant to descend the stairs of the court building.

The journalists, realising that, became eager and ran after the gentleman to take a photo shot of him, but the guy was smart, and played hide and seek with them until a motorbike quickly came to pick him from the other entrance of the court.

At last sitting
The apex court of the land, the Supreme Court, warned the Electoral Commission that it would not allow it to plunge the country into chaos.

The visibly unhappy panel of justices, presided by Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, indicated their displeasure over what they termed the lackadaisical attitude of the EC in complying with their orders in the Abu Ramadan suit.

The EC, on Thursday, failed to give specific measures it was putting in place to delete the names of voters who registered with NHIS cards.

The EC, which appeared to have understood the judgement of the Supreme Court differently on the deletion of the NHIS card registrants, had said the names would be deleted using existing procedures.

The former People's National Convention (PNC) National Youth Organiser, Abu Ramadan, and Evans Nimako, who secured the May 5 ruling, were back in court seeking a clarification of the judgement, following the EC's explanation.