The General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, has called for the application of the “innocent until proven guilty” principle in reviewing challenged cases in the just-ended voter registration exercise.
He said that just as was done in Ghana’s legal circles, where a suspect or an accused is deemed innocent until proven otherwise, persons who challenged the eligibility of applicants must be ready to prove why applicants must not be given their Voter ID cards to participate in the upcoming December polls.
Mr Kwetey made the call Wednesday when he briefly called on the District Registration Review Committee (DRCC) sitting on cases of challenged applicants in the Ketu South Municipality as part of his monitoring visit to some eight constituencies in the Volta Region.
The former Ketu South Member of Parliament said in cases where challengers involved in the cases could not show up on the appointed dates due to one reason or another, it should not affect the challenged applicants in any as that had the potential to deprive them of their right to vote.
“Innocent people should not be made to suffer for the inability of a challenger to be present on the day a challenged applicant is appearing before your committee because the challenger has the responsibility to provide reasons for questioning the eligibility of the affected applicant. I therefore appeal to you to be minded by the principle of innocent until proven guilty in your work.”
Torgbui Anubo IV, Chairman of the DRCC, allayed fears of making affected applicants suffer any injustice, saying during the six sittings the Committee had had, no such thing happened, assuring that when necessary, colleague party agents of such challengers were consulted to find ways to deal with the case without inconveniencing or disadvantaging the challenged applicants.
On the tour with Mr Fifi Fiafi Kwetey were executives of the Volta Regional NDC led by Mr Egypt Korbla Kudoto, the Regional Vice Chairman.
Mr James Gunu, the Regional Secretary in an interview with Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the number of challenged applicants in the Ketu South Constituency was huge and it was important for the Committee to double its efforts to give opportunity to all affected applicants to disprove or otherwise, the allegations against them.
The nationwide exercise was initially scheduled from May 07 to 27 at the district office and some hard-to-reach areas in the municipality, but it had been extended for two additional days to make up for the technical glitches experienced across the country on the first and second days.
Ketu South registered a total of 5,273 applicants out of which some 1,602 applicants had their eligibility challenged.
So far, about 300 of all the applicants challenged in the constituency have had their cards released to them while some 25 had theirs retained after seven sittings by the close of the day Wednesday.
Mr Kofi Sakyi Boampong, the District Electoral Commission Officer for Ketu South, told GNA that the Committee would continue to sit until the challenged cases were over assuring every challenged applicant would be given a fair chance.