Weeks after the end of the limited Voters Registration exercise, it has emerged that contrary to regulations by the Electoral Commission (EC), some registration officials resorted to their own rules and issued voter Identity Cards to people who were challenged by party agents, even before such challenged people could be cleared by the EC’s Review Committee. The Asutifi South Constituency branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has raised the red flag to draw the attention of electoral authorities to what the party finds as a monumental electoral fraud that was perpetrated by some electoral officials in the constituency, during the recent limited voter registration exercise.

The constituency branch of the NDC has complained that a number of people who were challenged over their age, nationality or other matters in a polling station at Nkeseim, where Mr. D.D. Peprah was the Returning Officer, have had their voters IDs secretly issued to them by registration officials in contravention of laws regulating registration exercises. The party backed its claim with a voter ID card that was secretly issued to one Nsenkyire Brobbey Mavis who was challenged on the first day of the registration exercise on suspicion that she was not up to 18 years. Mavis’ name is fifth on the list of 57 people who were challenged at registration centre number GO 31102, located in Nkaseim.

In a petition to the District Electoral officer over the irregularities that have been detected, the NDC explained that registration form number 24394698(HI) was filled in the name of Nsenkyire Brobbey Mavis. The petition said Mavis was challenged by the NDC agent at the centre, Mr. Osman Ahmed on the grounds that she was not up to 18 years. The petition, signed by Mr. Modestus Nuworsu, the NDC’s Constituency Secretary, pointed out that days after Mavis had been challenged, she told Mr. Ahmed who was the one who challenged her that he (the NDC agent) had failed because she and some other persons were subsequently invited into the house of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) agent, where their voter ID cards were prepared for them.

Explaining how Mavis’ voter ID card was obtained by the NDC to serve as evidence, Mr. Ahmed told The Chronicle that after Mavis had told him that she had gotten her card, he told her to bring it to him so that he would look at her particulars and cancel her name out of the challenged list. The NDC agent said Mavis obliged and brought the card to him later, and he collected the card to be used as evidence.

“Under the registration procedures, a person who is challenged does not take a photograph until he or she is cleared by the District Review Committee, before the person’s photograph is taken and an ID card prepared for him or her. We are therefore shocked that after the persons were challenged, their ID cards were secretly issued to them in the house of the NPP agent,” the NDC agent said. The District Electoral officer for the Asutifi District, Rev. Osei Bonsu, confirmed to The Chronicle that he had received such a petition from the NDC.

He said the Commission had started its investigations into the matter but could not state exactly w ere the investigations had reached and when the commission was likely to finish the investigations. Meanwhile, The Chronicle has gathered that the Goaso police has picked up the Returning Officer on Tuesday morning over the issue.