Ghana’s main opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the National Identification Authority (NIA) of aiding the Electoral Commission to rig the 2024 general election through data suppression.
These claims arise from the EC’s commitment to using the Ghana Card as the exclusive document for voter registration in the upcoming election.
According to the opposition party, the NIA is not facilitating the registration of the cards in certain parts of the country, as they claim that many NIA offices have been closed in some districts.
Mustapha Gbande, the Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, in an interview with Citi News in Accra on Wednesday, said the NIA is charging GHS280 for premium service in certain regions, which contradicts the fact that the Ghana Card is a public document that should be accessible to all Ghanaians.
“As we speak today, NIA is in certain regions undertaking premium express service and you are required to pay about 280 before you can be given a Ghana card. In this economy when people cannot even get food to eat,” he is quoted by Citinewsroom news portal.
“At this time when the issue of Ghana card has become so important how do we then say that it is a public service or document when the whole intent of the institution that is supposed to be giving that service is rather trying to make profit and commercialise it. Ghanaians cannot have access to the registration, they cannot afford it yet we are supposed to feel that it is a public document.”
Gbande said the NIA was only engaged in an exercise geared at preventing Ghanaians from registering for the Ghana card.
“We also feel that the NIA is deliberating doing that to allow for data suppression so that if it becomes the only document for registration to acquire a voter ID card then that data have been suppressed would have affected the election of 2024,” he added.
