NDC demands BVR details

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said it will resist any attempt by the Electoral Commission (EC) to “diminish transparency” in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.

The party has, therefore, instructed its agents to transmit all serial numbers of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits in their districts and electoral areas to the National Elections and IT Directorate of the party, with or without the approval of the EC.

“The 2024 elections will not be business as usual. The EC has no option but to allow our agents to record the serial numbers of the BVR kits deployed for this registration exercise if they have nothing to hide,” the chairman of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, said at a news conference in Accra yesterday.

Stolen kits

“Not long ago, you may recall that some BVR kits kept under CCTV surveillance were stolen from the headquarters of the EC. “Pursuant to this theft case, the NDC posed 35 questions to the EC.

However, it (the EC) has blatantly refused to answer the questions. We subsequently communicated the questions to the EC but no answers have been provided. Therefore, the EC cannot expect the NDC to believe and behave as if all is well,” Mr Nketiah said.

He said the party had always been suspicious that the stolen kits would be used to illegally register some people in order to add them to the voters’ register to enable them vote in this year’s election.

“If hardware can be stolen under CCTV surveillance, why not activation code? Faced with this imminent threat of a compromised voters register, we adopted a precautionary measure going into the ongoing limited voter registration exercise,” the party chairman said.

Why the move

He said it was for this reason that it had become necessary for the party to keep record of serial numbers of all BVR kits that would be deployed by the EC. Among others, he said, the essence of recording the serial numbers of the BVR kits would help the party to trace, identify and match every registration data emanating from a specific district or electoral area.

In addition, he said, it would also help the party to track all authorised personnel who operated the kits in every electoral area. “This will forestall any clandestine registration aimed at contaminating the voters register.

“We are determined to ringfence the threat and risk to the 2024 elections by documenting the serial numbers of each BVR kit that will be used in this registration exercise,” Mr Nketiah said.

He said the agents had also been instructed that if a BVR kit malfunctioned and was replaced during registration, they should duly record the serial numbers of the new BVR kits, the date and time of use.

Resistance

Mr Nketiah said although the move was for a good cause, the EC was preventing the party agents from doing as instructed. “Why is the EC resisting and stopping NDC registration agents from recording the serial numbers of BVR kits?

The big question is, what does the EC want to hide? What is their fear over the mere recording of the serial numbers of these BVR kits, knowing very well some have been stolen under their watch?

Is there something they are hiding from the public? Will our precautionary measure not prevent the criminals who stole the BVR kits from using them to illegally register people? If the EC has nothing to hide, it should just allow willing political parties to record the serial numbers of BVR kits during this limited voter registration exercise,” he said.