The Electoral Commission (EC) is planning to reject old voters ID cards and birth certificates as a primary form of identification in the new voters registration exercise planned for this year.

The only primary documents the Commission will accept in the registration process is either a Ghana National Identification Card (Ghana Card) or a Ghanaian passport.

This is expected to be enforced if the new proposal for amendment in the Constitutional Instrument (CI) for the registration currently before Parliament becomes law.

The EC on Monday (March 16) sent a proposal to Parliament for an amendment in the Constitutional Instrument 91 (CI) which guides the conduct of elections in Ghana.

In the proposal, the EC is seeking an amendment in Regulation 1, which talks about documents to be accepted as a form of identification as a Ghanaian before registration.

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and the Majority Leader in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu made this known in a radio interview with Accra based Okay FM Wednesday morning (March 18, 2020).

According to him anyone who does not have any of those two documents would have to get people to vouch for them that they were indeed Ghanaians before they will be registered.

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Per the move, anyone holding an old voters ID card issued from 2012 till date or a birth certificate cannot use it to register.

According to reports form Graphic Online, this is because of the assumption that some people used national health insurance (NHIS) ID cards for the initial registration which has been outlawed by the Supreme Court and the EC ordered to remove names of people who used it to register following the Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako case at the Supreme Court. 

Even though the EC before the 2016 general elections removed names of those who registered with the NHIS cards as their primary form of identification, there is still arguments in some political circles that there are some names still in the current register.

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament says the proposal for amendment is not acceptable and that the EC should revise its notes to include the old voters ID cards and birth certificates otherwise, it would be rejected.

Speaking to Okay FM a Minority Member of Parliament on the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Mr Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor said unless birth certificates and old voter ID cards were added, they will reject it.

He argued that the national ID card registration currently ongoing has not been completed and many people even though have registered, they were yet to be issued with ID cards.

Many, he said have also not been able to register as of now.

Following this, Mr Dafeamekpor said the EC ought to add birth certificates and existing voters ID cards.