EC presents 56,739 ‘NHIS voters’ to Supreme Court but applicants say list is ficticious
Counsel for Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako, the two applicants seeking clarification of a Supreme Court judgement on the voters register, have described as fictitious the list of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) registrants on the electoral roll presented to the court by the Electoral Commission (EC).
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The exact number of people on the list submitted by the EC to the court was not revealed in court, but the Head of Communications at the EC, Mr Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, revealed to the Daily Graphic that the commission submitted a list of 56,739 to the apex court.
At the sitting of the Supreme Court yesterday, Mr Frank Davies, counsel for the applicants, told the court that the list was not a credible one because there was no space on the forms used for the voters registration which indicated the type of identification one used to register.
“The list presented by the commission is spurious and conjured and, in the very least modest language, fictitious,’’ Mr Davies submitted in court.
In view of the objections raised by the applicants, the court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, directed the legal team of the applicants to file their written submission stating their objections by 11 a.m. on July 4, 2016.
The court subsequently fixed July 5, 2016 as the date to give its ruling on the application.
Other members of the five-member panel hearing the application are Justices A. A Benin, Anin Yeboah, Sulley Gbadegbe and Paul Baffoe-Bonnie.
Application
The apex court, in its judgement on May 5, 2016, ordered the EC to take immediate steps to delete the names of persons not qualified to be on the voters register.
They included minors, those who registered with NHIS cards and the deceased.
Mr Ramadan and Mr Nimako, who were the original plaintiffs in the suit that led to the judgement, filed the application seeking clarification and further direction on the judgement.
In view of the application, the Supreme Court ordered the EC to furnish it with the names of persons on the electoral roll who registered with NHIS cards and how the commission intended to comply with the May 5 judgement.
The EC complied with the court’s orders and presented the list to the Supreme Court last Wednesday.
Amendment
One interesting thing that took place during yesterday’s hearing was an attempt by the applicants to amend their application.
It was, however, struck out by the court.
Mr Davies had argued that their application was “unwarranted” and, therefore, they wanted to withdraw it. The court, however, dismissed the motion.
“Under the circumstance, the motion for amendment is struck out,’’ it held.
NHIS lists
When the issue of the NHIS list came up during the hearing, Mr Davies called the list “problematic’’ and vehemently objected to it.
He argued that there was no record to support the existence of the list.
“I am at a loss as to how the EC came up with the list. If the primary record does not provide the determinants, I wonder how they came up with the list,’’ he said.
He explained that some of the NHIS numbers on the list “had seven, eight, 12 and five digits, while others had no numbers at all’’.
“In the Afigya Kwabre District, numbers 18-55, 751-772, 774-797 and 799-929 on the list had no NHIS numbers at all.
“In Asokwa and Asante–Akim Central, it is strange that on the list only one person registered with the NHIS card,’’ he said.
Help EC
As a result of Mr Davies’s submission, the Chief Justice asked if he knew the number of people at Asokwa who had registered with NHIS cards.
Mr Davies answered that he knew about 10 people.
The Chief Justice then asked him and anyone who knew any person who registered with the NHIS to inform the EC.
“Why don’t you submit those names to the EC? We must understand that this is a shared responsibility. They have given us this list; if you have another number, why don’t you submit it to make the work of the EC easy? It is your national and constitutional duty.
“Under CI 91, if you are a registered voter, you can make a formal complaint. I don’t think the EC will throw you out if you submit such a list to it,’’ she said.
EC’s response
In response, counsel for the EC, Mr Thaddeus Sory, argued that the list was not as fictitious as had been asserted by the applicants.
“The list was extracted from the Form 1A and it is perfectly genuine,’’ he said.
Mr Justice Benin asked counsel why some of the NHIS numbers on the list were missing.
Mr Sory explained that it was an “oversight on the part of the registration officers who captured the details. They could have indicated that it was an NHIS card but might have failed to indicate the numbers on the card”.
