Integrity of Ghana card is questionable – Dr Otokunor

Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana’s biggest opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Peter Boamah Otokunor has alleged that the integrity of the Ghana card has been compromised.

According to him, “crooked and political means are being used to discriminate against people who are otherwise qualified to have the Ghana card”.

Dr. Otokunor said this in an interview monitored by African Editors on Monday.

“The Ghana card is suffering an integrity crisis because of the political discrimination that this government is employing in registering the members”, he emphasized.

He noted that, if these barriers to registration are removed, the card’s integrity may be restored.

In a sharp reaction to Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia’s hint that the Ghana Card could become a primary document for voters in future elections, Dr. Otukunor shared a different view on the subject matter.

According to him, he does not agree with the use of the Ghana card to replace the voter’s ID in the 2024 elections.

“Nobody should delude him or herself that making such comments and bringing such public discourse will get Ghanaians to support the idea that we are going to use the Ghana card for election,” he stressed.

This, he said is because Ghanaians are not ready to use our Ghana cards for election, “the system is not ready, the membership and coverage are not ready, the extent of the depth of the registration is not up to the point where we can use it as basis to vote.”

He however did not rule out that the Ghana card could be used in the future.

“I subscribe to the view that if we are able to exclude all these possibilities of excluding people and preventing them from getting the Ghana card from the registration system, there may be a point in time where the integrity of the card would get to a point where we can use it to vote,” he noted.