NPP Wanted to use Report on CI 126 to favour the EC in Court – Deputy Whip alleges 

Deputy Minority Whip in Parliament and the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Banda constituency, Ibrahim Ahmed, has alleged that the Majority side’s failed attempt to stampede the Chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee in Parliament to present his Committee’s report when it was not ready was to help the Electoral Commission (EC) fight a case against its legal authority in court.

A seven-member Supreme Court panel, presided over by Chief Justice, Justice Anin Yeboah, on Thursday, June 4, ordered the Electoral Commission (EC ) to provide the legal basis for its decision to refuse to accept the existing voters’ card as a form of identification in the upcoming mass voters registration exercise.

Per the orders which were given during the hearing of a suit by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) challenging the upcoming compilation of new voters register by the EC, the information must be provided to the Apex Court by Monday, June 8, 2020. But the hearing of the case continues on June 11, 2020.

However, last week Friday, June 5, 2020, Parliament was totally divided along the lines of the entrenched party positions taken by the NDC and NPP on the quest by the Electoral Commission to compile a new voters register to be used in the upcoming general elections in December this year with the exclusion of the old voter ID card.

While the Chairman of the Committee led by the NDC’s Dominic Akuritinga Ayine claimed that the Report of the Committee wasn’t ready at the time and therefore copies could not be made available to the rest of the Members of the House for deliberations to take place, the NPP Ranking Member, Yaw Boaben Asamoa, was insistent that the Report was ready, but was unsigned by the Chairman.

According to the Minority Whip, Ibrahim Ahmmed who spoke in an interview with Opera News, the move by the Ranking Member of the Committee to usurp the authority of the Chairman, was calculated to find any means possible to help the Electoral Commission (EC) satisfy the demand by the Supreme Court for the EC to provide legal basis for some of its actions in the compilation of a new voter roll.

The NDC invoked the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution with the argument that the EC was acting unconstitutionally by deciding to reject an existing voters ID as a prerequisite for the upcoming voter registration exercise.

The NDC further advances that the decision by the EC to reject an existing voter ID will disenfranchise many Ghanaians which is a violation of Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution.

The other members on the panel that will decide the case apart from the Chief Justice, are Justices Jones Dotse, Paul Baffoe Bonnie, Sule Gbagegbe, Samuel K Marful-Sau, Nene Amegatcher, and Professor Ashie Kotey.

Source: Clement Akoloh || parliamentnews360.com