NIA’s insistence it has all the biometric data for new voters’ register ‘heart-warming’ – PPP

The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) says it was heart-warming that the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Ken Attafuah has said the Authority has all the biometric data the Electoral Commission (EC) will need for the creation of a new voters’ register.

This, the PPP thinks was a vindication of their position that, there was no need for the Electoral Commission to waste resources to compile a new voters register and that it should rely on the data already in the possession of the NIA.

The party in a statement signed and issued by its National Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, said it will be a waste of the country’s meagre resources if the EC decides to go solo in compiling a new voters’ register without collaborating with the NIA which had biometric data that the EC needed for the compilation of a new voters’ register.

It said the only thing the EC needs, which the NIA does not take, is polling station number or name but that is as easy as ABC to get with technology; it is not a problem at all”.

Below is a copy of the PPP’s statement

On 8th January, 2020, we expressed grave concern at the news that the Parliament of Ghana approved the budget for the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 elections.

The party clarified that the compilations of any new voters register without the utilization of the National Identification System infrastructure is needless and a waste of our scarce resources.

It would be recalled that, a day after we released our statement, the Electoral Commission rejected our call for it to depend on the Database of the National Identification Authority (NIA) in the compilation of the new voters’ register, with the excuse that “the NIA has no timelines in its data compilation exercise making it impossible for the EC to resort to their system since they have timelines to their work”.

It is heart-warming that the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Ken Attafuah, is reported on several platforms to have said that, “the Authority has all the biometric data the Electoral Commission (EC) will need for the creation of a new voters’ register. The only thing the EC needs, which the NIA does not take, is polling station number or name but that is as easy as ABC to get with technology; it is not a problem at all”.

We commend the NIA boss for vindicating our long-standing position on the use of the National Identification database for the compilation of the voter register; and same position, recently corroborated by 18 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), who indicated through their release that “if there is a need for collecting fresh data on citizens, the more appropriate, most lawful and financially responsible and justified approach will be to let the NIA (The legally mandated Authority for collecting national identification data) collect and process the information and send the EC the subset of the information it needs for the purpose of election. The EC can then use that information to update its systems”.

The PPP has been an advocate for a single national identification database to be shared by all state, quasi-state and private institutions.

Our position is that the taxpayer must not be made to suffer unnecessarily when leaders fail to pluck low hanging fruits and the economy takes a backward step every time that happens.

We have the opportunity to avoid potential fraudulent electoral outcome which could spark violence in our country. Let us all remain wide awake in saving this land of rich resources and mighty talents from wasteful and unpatriotic regimes.

Signed,

Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond

National Chairman

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