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Opinions of Thursday, 14 May 2020

Columnist: J A Manso

Is compilation of new voter's register still possible? Commonsensical no

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Our Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) bosses must act as Managers rather than ordinary employees of the organization. The earlier they realise as EC that they commonsensically, practically and health wise cannot execute the creation of a New Voter's Register, the better for all of us Ghanaians.

The EC is like any other business that has been affected by the COVID -19 and has to reorganize or restructure its operations accordingly.

No country on Earth will within this 2020 declare its country COVID-free for everything to go back to normal. So as the EC insists on the New Voter's Register, what process is the EC going to use to execute that?

Now, about 400 to 600 persons (sometimes more) are supposed to be registered at each polling station. In all an average of about 13 million people will queue to register. These people have to queue and also have to put their fingers on the biometric machine for fingerprints.

Will this not spread the Virus? Certainly, yes. Those who will argue that sanitizers can be used should note that sanitizers are not even a 99 percent guarantee for killing all the viruses on the machine.

Again, will registrants wear nose masks for the photographs? This will not make sense and not practicable.

It is worthy of note that because it has been established that finger recognition devices have aided transmissions, institutions that have and use biometric time machines across the world have stopped using them due to its great source of spreading the viruses.

As stated earlier, the EC has to reorganize itself like any other business and work with the existing register for smooth and timely elections 2020.

By the way, the same current register delivered a win for the sitting President close to a million vote margin.

EC must be a very dynamic institution. Don't behave like a servant who tries to execute an order even if it does not make sense.

Our health Professors, especially the public health practitioners must speak out loud before this country is plunged into a COVID -19 catastrophe.

Only yesterday we were told the Trust Hospital has to quarantine several of their workers. The question is how many workers are left to work now? Is it not stress on the remaining staff?

The basic tenets of Risk Management is to attempt minimising the risk from the outset. So our health professionals should begin talking. They should not think that the scanty extra allowance promised them will save their own lives and our lives when we are critically infected. A word to a wise person is enough. Thanks