Scrap verbal verification of suspected minors – IDEG

The Institute of Democratic Governance – IDEG, has called for the scrapping of portions of the law which allows adult relatives or friends to vouch for persons who are doubted to be minors or foreigners in a locality during voter registration exercises.

According to IDEG “the law requires that two adults related to a minor can certify who you are and then immediately you are registered... please can we stop that?

“Maybe we should change the law and make it more stringent. Can we put it on a separate file and investigate? Can we do that? We failed to do that and now we are complaining, it is not the biometric, it is our neglect.”

This was among a four point agenda submitted by the Executive Director of IDEG, a governance Think Tank which joined a host of Civil Society Organisations, Political Parties etc at a forum organised by the Electoral Commission on whether or not Ghana should have a totally new voters register or clean the existing one.

The forum scheduled for the 29th and 30th of October, saw the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress amongst other bodies presenting reasons behind their call for a new register or the cleansing of the current one.

IDEG is of the view that merely cleaning the existing register would not suffice but a more concerted effort is needed from especially the citizenry to give the country a “credible” register as Ghana goes into the 2016 elections.