EC worried about low turn for re-registration after deletion of NHIS registrants

The Electoral Commission (EC) says it has re-registered only 6,181 people who previously registered with National Health Insurance Schem(NHIS) cards, a situation it says is worrying.

With three days to the end of an ongoing nationwide re-registration exercise, the Commission was expecting the number of re-registered voters to be close to the over 56,000 NHIS registrants it deleted from the electoral roll.

The EC deleted about 56,772 names from the voters register following a Supreme Court order that ruled that the use of the health insurance card for voter registration was unconstitutional.

The apex court also ordered that the affected persons who had registered with the NHIS cards in 2012 be given the opportunity to reregister.

In compliance with this directive, the EC set July 18 to 28 for the re-registration exercise.

Deputy Director of Communication at the Commission, Yussif Ayuba, told Joy News if the figures for the re-registrants do not improve by Friday, thousands of voters would be disenfranchised in the upcoming December 7 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

“We are encouraging persons whose names appear on the NHIS list to make it a point to go to the various district offices to make sure that they have their names back on the roll,” he admonished.

Signs of a low turnout for the re-registration became evident when on the first day less than one percent of persons whose names restored their names on the EC data base.

Only 550 persons were re-registered across the country on the first day.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN