The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has advised the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to rescind its decision to boycott the registration for the National Identity cards popularly known as Ghana card. The PPP is of the view that, it will be politically suicidal for the largest opposition party to hold onto their hypocritical and unacceptable stance on the criteria for the registration.
Murtala Mohammed, General Secretary of the PPP said, the decision by the Minority to boycott the exercise, is untenable because they exhausted all the laid down procedures before the Act governing the NIA, was amended and unanimously supported its passage.
A statement issued by the Minority on the matter read:
‘’…we remain opposed to the restriction of identification requirements for registration to Passports and Birth Certificates. Our analysis show that this will prevent about 23 million Ghanaians from obtaining the Ghana Card and deprive them of any benefit thereof.
We also have grave concerns about potential breaches of Procurement laws and processes. In view of the foregoing, we are unbale to participate in the registration exercise slated for tomorrow at Parliament house.’’
But Murtala Mohammed believes the Minority is engaging in a minor political issue and stressed the law was accented by the MPs hence the caucus on the side of the Minority, makes no sense. He challenged them to provide one major reason why the NDC boycotted the issue since in his view, the problems they raised have solutions.
‘’Then we wake up one morning and they said they have boycotted the registration. We [PPP] think that it is unacceptable and the reason given is untenable. It will be a political suicide for the NDC if they fail to rescind the decision to boycott the registration,’’ he posited. ''All they are trying to do is to appeal to a certain category of people in our society.
They know that what they are doing is hypocritical but they are trying to score cheap political point. They will soon register. Members on the side of the Minority will soon register. The NDC is playing on the emotion of some group of people so that they people will be agitated.''