The Electoral Commission (EC) says it has successfully deleted names of over 56,000 National Health Insurance registrants on the electoral roll.

The names of the deleted persons will be published in the dailies and at the various district EC offices in order for the affected persons to go and re register from the 18-28 July 2016.

These were revealed to political party representatives, Tuesday at an Inter Party Advisory Committee, chaired by the Electoral Commission.

The deletion of the 56,772 NHIS registrants is in compliance to an order by the Supreme Court following petition by the People National Convention's Abu Ramadan and one Evans Nimako.

The petitioners argued the credibility of the voters register remains compromised with the names of NHIS card holders on it.

Not all NHIS card holders are Ghanaians but the voter's register is exclusively reserved for citizens and there is a possibility some of the NHIS card holders on the register are non-Ghanaians.

The judges agreed with the arguments of the petitioners and ordered the EC to delete names of 56,772 NHIS card holders contained in a list provided by the EC as well as others who registered with the NHIS cards but whose names are not in the list the EC presented to the Supreme Court.

At an IPAC meeting, Tuesday, the EC announced that it has complied with the order of the Supreme Court and also indicated that the deleted persons will be given the opportunity to re-register with the right identity cards beginning July 18.

Joy News' Favour Nunoo who followed the IPAC meeting reported that the representatives of the parties are happy with the deletion.

They however raised issues about the potential to disenfranchise the registrants.

Some of the party reps argued not all the affected persons may have access to the newspaper to check their names or have money to go to the district offices and that will go against them.

But the EC in a response also suggested the register will be opened on the 18 of July for all Ghanaians to check if their names are in the register. The affected NHIS card holders can take advantage of the opening and check if their names are on the register or not.

The NDC Director of elections Samuel Ofosu Ampofo in an interview with Joy News said the EC has promised to make the deleted list available to the political parties.

"We fish for goods. As for political parties, our strategy is that once we get the list we need to hit the ground and see how best we can reach out to those people and assist them do the reregistration. In politics every vote counts and so we will live no stone unturned as a party to pursue those whose names have been deleted and try and see how can help them to reregister," he said.

The Chairman of the NPP campaign team Peter Mac Manu was also happy but was quick to point out that the process of deletion had not been completed.

He would rather the entire process is completed and some of deleted persons reregistered before the party will proceed to describe the process as successful.

Meanwhile, Lawyer for the petitioners Frank Davies has welcomed the deletion. Even though he was unaware of it, he said if the political parties are happy with deletion then that is enough. 

He said he will meet with his client and see what the next line of action will be.