Our vigilance has reduced foreigners on Ghana's voter register - John Boadu
The General Secretary of of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr John Boadu says the vigilance of the party's polling agents during the mass voters registration exercise which ended last week has led to a drastic reduction in the number of voters in constituencies along Ghana's borders.
According to him, this was achieved by the vigilance of the party's agents in challenging foreigners, mostly those close to the border towns from registering.
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He said in some border constituencies, the number of voters on the register reduced by over 12,000 people as compared to what existed on the previous voters register.
Mr Boadu was addressing a press conference in Accra Monday afternoon, August 10, 2020 on the just ended mass voter registration exercise.
How new registration has helped to reduce 'bloated' register
Arguing in support of the Electoral Commission's decision for the new voters register, Mr Boadu said the exercise has helped to prevent about three million names from staying on the electoral roll which hitherto should not have been there going by the law.
He said at the end of the voter registration exercise last week, the EC registered a little over 17 million people.
That, according to him, if the EC should have gone ahead to use the old voter register and conducted a limited registration exercise, per the statistics, the EC would have added three million more people who are not qualified to register, hence increasing the figure to over 20 million people.
NPP vindicated
For Mr Boadu, the NPP has been vindicated by the outcome of the newly compiled voters register.
According to him, the old voters register "is not fit for purpose" because of the numerous people who were not supposed to be part of the register but found themselves on it.
He was of the view that the NDC with its allies resisted the compilation of a new voters register because they knew that when a new register was compiled, it will expose those unqualified names on the register.
That, Mr Boadu said, the NDC and its allies used various means including demonstrations and press conferences to frustrate the EC's efforts to compile a new and credible register for the 2020 general elections.
He said the newly compiled register conforms with Ghana's population.
He also accused the NDC of perpetrating violence at the various voter registration centres across the country as part of their scheme to frustrate the exercise.
"The acts of violence perpetrated at the registration centres were encouraged by the NDC," Mr Boadu indicated.
He said it was not true that anybody who qualified to register was denied the opportunity on the basis that the person lacked the required documents to register.
He said those who used Ghana Card to register in the exercise constituted 60 per cent while those who used passport and guarantors were 1.9 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.
Below is a copy of John Boadu's full address at the press conference
