Ghana: 76,286 Togolese in voters’ register – Opposition alleges

The New Patriotic Party has alleged over 76, 286 people with same names and pictures are in the voters’ registers of both Ghana and Togo.

Presenting what he termed “a damning revelation” which should trigger the need for a new voters’ register in Ghana before the 2016 elections, the vice presidential candidate of the main opposition party Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said the uncovering of these foreign nationals in the register is just “10% of the search.”

“Our investigative team obtained the Togo voters’ register which was publicly displayed prior to the 2015 Togolese elections. Using facial biometric recognition technology, the system has found 76,286 potential matches of the same people, with the same names and faces on the Ghanaian as well as Togolese voters registers; some 2000 of which we present in the power point presentation,” Dr Bawumia stressed at a news conference Tuesday.

“I should note that so far, we have only completed less than 10% of the work on the Togolese register and we will begin work on comparing the Ivorian register with Ghana’s shortly and follow that with the Burkina Faso register.

“Even though our investigations are on-going, we are presenting our initial results because time is of the essence in this matter of a new electoral register. The EC, as we speak, is in the process of taking a decision on the issue and we have to make an input into this process at the earliest opportunity."

He added: “What is more troubling with the findings so far is that many of the pictures of the Togolese citizens on Ghana’s register were not taken in a live environment but rather scanned from existing pictures and documents. We actually have an incredible situation of one polling station in Ketu south constituency (Temporary Booth Shikakope-Apekotuime) where most of the pictures on the voters register were scanned.

“The question therefore is how these scanned pictures got into the EC voters register? This could only have been done by people with the necessary security permissions to do so. The evidence is therefore incontrovertible that Ghana’s voters register has been compromised. It is not a document we can rely on for free fair and transparent elections in Ghana.”

“We recommend that a new voters’ register should be ready by July 2016… The evidence, we have shown you is damning and shows that Ghana’s voters register has been compromised,” Dr Bawumia noted.

He said there is a need for a new register by June 2016 "to replace the over-bloated one".


Source: Ghana/starrfmonline.com/103.5FM