The opposition National Congress (NDC) has set aside its controversial biometric system of registration and asked all members to re-register manually ahead its internal elections slated for 2018.
According to the Party, the new register will be opened to all Party members and individuals who turned 18 years at all recognized branches nationwide from November to December, 2017.
The new decision was arrived at the last National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held in Accra about a week ago.
Speaking at the news conference held at the Party Headquarters, the National Chairman and Leader of the Party, Kofi Portuphy urged party members, activists and sympathizers to help the system work devoid of Acrimonies.
He said: “All party members who are desirous of having their names in the register must assure that, they are identified with their branches and register with their branches. Indeed NEC has also approved a timetable for the party to use to conduct its internal elections from the branch level up to the national level”.
Speaking in an interview on DWABIREM, deputy communications director for the party Fred Agbenyo stated that the National Executive Committee had unanimously agreed to scrap the register as it was deemed not credible enough.
He also suggested that, recommendations made by the Kwesi Botchwey Committee, which was set up to probe NDC’s loss in the 2016 elections, had factored into the decision as well.
“In line with the wishes of the majority of the members of the National Democratic Congress, and in the wake of recommendations made by the election review committee chaired by Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, the National Executive Committee, which is the highest decision-making body after Congress, voted unanimously for the scrapping of the register which was used to conduct our internal elections last year,” Agbenyo said.
“The register, which was meant to be a biometric one, did not meet the standards required to make it qualified to be a biometric register. NEC has decided that we should adopt a manual process of capturing the names of members at all branches nationwide.”
Below is the timetable adopted by NEC to for the elections:
1. November and December, 2017: Fresh registration of party members from all branches.
2. January 27th and 28th, 2018 Branch elections.
3. March 24th and 25th, 2018 Constituency elections.
4- 2 and 3rd June, 2018 Regional Youth, Women and Zongo caucus elections.
5. 9th June, 2018 Regional conference.
6. 13 and 14 July, 2018 National Youth & Women conference.
7. 27th and 28th July, 2018 National Executive conference.
As party of the unity drive, NEC is expected to begin National outrage program between October 18-24 2017.
Source, otecfmghana.com/ Evans Agyei Sikapa
