Former General Secretary of the Ghana Christian Council, Rev. Dr. Kwabena Opuni Frimpong has chided the governing NPP administration and the opposition National Democratic Congress for orchestrating problems at the Electoral Commission.
Citing the issues regarding the Voter’s register, Rev. Dr. Opuni Frimpong stated that the two most powerful political parties in the country were responsible for the anomalies within the register. He noted that they were guilty of practicing double registration, voting and registration of minors and yet would return to raise hell on the institution.
“My experience with this is that they can go do double registration, register minors, pursue double voting and then they come back to raise their voice against the very thing that they have done; NPP does that, NDC does that and then they put those who are managing the elections in trouble… They come and talk, shout… the register is not good but they know what they have done not to make the register good,” He explained.
Rev. Dr. Opuni Frimpong was responding to a question in relation to the former EC chairperson Charlotte Osei’s tenure when he took his turn on GhanaWeb’s 21 Minutes with KKB.
He admitted that although there were genuine challenges at the commission, the outgone chairperson ought to be lauded as managing both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was a daunting task.
Prior to the 2016 elections several concerned groups of Ghanaians called for the cleaning of the voter’s register citing the inclusions of dead citizens, non-Ghanaians as well as underage voters. They also raised concerns about the use of the National Health Insurance card to register for the voter’s card.
The exercise was eventually carried out after Ghana’s apex court, ordered the Electoral Commission to delete from the electoral roll names of all dead people and persons who used the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card to register to vote.
But Mr. Opuni-Frimpong noted that the major political parties were to blame for the status of the electoral roll in the first place since they played a large role in the registration of the electorates.