It will be a tragedy if Ghana Card is not used for the 2024 elections – NIA Boss

Executive Secretary of, National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah has indicated that with the assistance of the Electoral Commission (EC) the National Identification Card (Ghana Card) will be used for the 2024 elections.

According to Prof Attafuah, it will be a great disservice to Ghana should any other card aside from the Ghana Card be used for the elections. He added that his outfit is ready and will be able to issue the Ghana Card to all eligible voters should it be given the needed support.

He disclosed this on Asaase Radio monitored by Soireenews.com. “Speaking for myself, I think it will be a tragedy if we do not (use the “Ghana Card” for the election 2024). There is no reasonable basis in my view for that not to happen” According to him, some 17.3 million of a population of 15 years and above, so those who are going to fall into the category of people eligible to register and vote by age 18, a lot of them have already been captured. “We still have a certain margin of approximately 2 million.

For those 2 million people who have not registered, if they desire to register, there is no reason why they cannot be registered within a maximum of 6 months and we are talking 2024, (some two clear years) to the day the electoral commission would say we are closing the registration.

He reiterated that should the EC decide to use the Ghana Card and the Parliament of Ghana give it the needed approval, the NIA will ensure that no eligible voter is disenfranchised. Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has stated that he is yet to receive a brief on the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) that EC has indicated it will be tabling for a continuous voters registration exercise it wants to undertake.

According to him, if the electoral Commission fails to meet the leader of the house, they should forget about laying the CI before the house. A few months back, the Electoral Commission announced the proposed Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations 2021 Constitutional Instrument, which sought to make the Ghana Card the only document of nationality for its impending limited registration exercise.

The minority caucus of Parliament has rejected the proposal of the EC saying that the use of only the Ghana Card will disenfranchise many eligible voters.