The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has faulted the President’s decision to ease restrictions on public gatherings, saying, it is not in the nation’s interest.

Mr. Sammy Gyamfi, its National Communication Officer, said the decision had been taken for purely parochial political reasons.

Addressing, the party’s maiden virtual briefing in Accra, on Monday, he said they were inclined to believe that, this was intended to pave way for the Electoral Commission (EC) to carry out what he termed as “its rigging agenda”.

That, he claimed, would be done through the compilation of “needless and wasteful" new voters’ roll.

Mr. Gyamfi said, the fact that church and mosque gatherings were not supposed to have more than 100 people in attendance, and to last for just an hour, but the National Identification Authority (NIA) and EC had been given the freedom to register unlimited number of people from 0700 hours to 1700 hours, a period of 10 hours, showed clearly that, the partial re-opening of schools, churches and mosques was a ruse.

He rebuked the EC for, what he alleged was an uncompromising posture adopted on a new voters’ register.

"We are appalled by the Jean Mensah-led EC’s refusal to honor the invitations of the National House of Chiefs, which were intended to promote dialogue on the EC’s entrenched decision to compile a new voters’ register for 2020 general elections.

"Our traditional authorities, are key stakeholders in Ghana’s peace architecture and have contributed enormously to the peace, stability and democracy of this country."

Mr. Gyamfi said his party found the refusal of the EC to honor the invitation of the chiefs to be “highly disrespectful and an insult to the values and customs of this country, and must be condemned by all well-meaning Ghanaians".

He repeated their determination to “employ every legitimate means to stop the EC’s attempt to foist a needless and wasteful voter register that is intended to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, mostly in NDC strongholds, on Ghanaians".