According to Kofi Bentil, a senior vice president of IMANI-Africa, the National Identification Authority (NIA) is capable of registering every Ghanaian for the Ghana Card.
He asserted that the NIA has the necessary tools to facilitate registration and that providing identity cards shouldn't be a problem.
"I am certain that the NIA will be able to register every person in Ghana who needs to be registered. It shouldn't be too difficult to issue ID cards, and the NIA in particular has access to hundreds of millions of cash to complete the task. Therefore it is feasible for me. He said, "I'm glad they say they can do it.
He emphasised the need for clarification that the NIA must register anybody who is eligible to be registered to vote in his appearance on JoyNews' Newsfile on Saturday.
The connection between the Ghana Card and the EC is necessary, Mr Bentil continued, "so that we will effectively have continuous registration because the people who will turn eighteen one week before the elections are scheduled and are legitimate voters."
He stated to the presenter Samson Lardy Anyenini that the Electoral Commission (EC) must be able to create a mechanism that allows every Ghanaian who reaches 18 to be able to participate in the voting process, even a week before the election.
The attorney continued by saying that he believed the EC legislation, which prohibited persons from registering to vote 90 days prior to an election, was illegal.
The aforementioned law, according to Mr. Bentil, was still applicable when the country lacked the tools necessary to identify whether a person is 18 or not.
In addition, he said that if we want to advance as a country, "we should have a structure where if you have a Ghana Card, you actually don't need to re-register for an election." He emphasised that the Ghana Card resolves the issue he addressed.
The recently proposed Constitutional Instrument (CI) to Parliament is what prompted Mr. Bentil's statement.
The aforementioned CI, the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Instrument, 2022, aims to eliminate all other forms of voter registration in Ghana and replace them with the Ghana Card.
Even though EC Chair Jean Mensa addressed Parliament on February 28 to provide explanations on the CI, the EC is having trouble winning the House's backing to put the CI into effect.
Since then, the Minority Caucus has voiced opposition to the planned CI's adoption, claiming that doing so will deny Ghanaians their right to vote.
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