[ 2016-06-24 ]

Blame EC’s stubbornness for ‘harsh’ court order – Abu Ramadan
The man at the centre of the Supreme Court suit
over the credibility of Ghana’s voters’
register, Abu Ramadan, has said the Electoral
Commission (EC) may have forced itself into a
rather difficult position, following its
stubbornness, hence the new directive from the
Supreme Court, on the matter of National Health
Insurance card registrants on the voters’
register.

He has no sympathy for them as he believes the EC
had more than enough time to adequately clean the
voters’ register but refused to do.

Mr. Ramadan’s comments come after the Supreme
Court on Thursday ordered the EC to furnish it
with the full list of persons, who registered onto
the electoral roll with the National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card as a form of
identification, in six days.

The court believes this will bring clarity on its
May 5, 2016, judgement, regarding the removal of
unqualified persons on the voters registers to a
closure.

The apex court further ordered EC to provide them
with a detailed plan on how they were going to
carry out the deletion and re-registration of the
people, who registered with the NHIS cards.

Abu Ramadan had earlier indicated that it would
take a number of months for the EC to put such a
list together, but he now maintains that the
commission has landed itself in this situation,
where they now have only 6 days to produce the
list.

“I don’t know if the six days they have been
given will be enough for them, but that it’s not
for me to say” he opined, explaining that,
“the commission had two solid years to deal with
this matter, to lay this matter to rest.

The commission failed to take action. They also
failed do deal with the crux of this matter,”
Mr. Ramadan said in an interview on Eyewitness
News.

“Aside the two years, the commission had an
extra one month to really sort itself out to take
the orders of the court serious, and put into
effect the orders of the court which it refused
to,” he added.

Mr. Ramadan further asserted that the EC would
not be in this situation if they had diligently
followed the court ruling.

“If the commission had shown good faith and
good intent to carry out the orders of the court,
we wouldn’t be where we are today. We are where
we are today because the commission has not shown
good faith in this matter,” he stated.

Background

The apex court on May 5, asked the EC to expunge
from the current voters’ register the names of
all persons who registered and voted in the 2012
elections, with the NHIS card as a proof of
identity.

The ruling followed a suit filed by Abu Ramadan,
and one, Evans Nimako, who in 2014 won a lawsuit
that barred the use of NHIS cards for
registration.

The two, among other reliefs, wanted the current
register declared inappropriate for the November
polls.

But the EC after studying the ruling said it’s
understanding does not suggest the use of any new
process to delete the names of those who
registered with NHIS cards since there are already
laid down procedures for expunging ineligible
names.

The EC’s explanation, however, angered Mr.
Ramadan who felt the Commission was disrespecting
the explicit orders of the court.

His position was further strengthened when one of
the judges who gave the May 5 ruling, stated
categorically that the ruling was clear and
unambiguous and that the EC must remove the names
of persons who registered with the NHIS card.

Source - citifmonline.com

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