The Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has clarified that the party’s request for the Electoral Commission (EC) to release the serial numbers of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits is aimed at tracking the machines currently in use at the limited voter registration exercise across the country.

Mustapha Gbande explained that the NDC’s call for the serial numbers stemmed from reports of some missing BVR machines, adding that in the interest of public transparency and audit, the party sought the disclosure of these serial numbers.

Speaking on Top Story on Thursday, May 9, Mr Gbande said that it is common practice for the BVR kit serial numbers to be provided to all political party agents both before and after each day's registration process at various centers.

“This is public, this is not hidden. It is quite strange that in the process of registration, some sort of objection comes up as to the release of the machines.” 

The NDC has insisted that the reluctance of the EC to provide them with serial numbers of BVR kits being used in the Limited Voter Registration Exercise process nationwide is surprising and breeds mistrust.

Read also: Limited registration: Disclosing BVR kit serial numbers will pose security risk – EC tells NDC

However, the EC explained that it cannot make the serial numbers public as it could pose a security threat to the data being collected.

In this regard, Mr Gbande underscored that disclosing the serial numbers of the machines in use is standard procedure, as evidenced by the provision of serial numbers of voting machines on election day.

“Therefore, in both requests that we have made, one of the substantive requests of the missing BVR machines is for the purposes of finding the stolen asset of the Electoral Commission for which we are stakeholders, and also for the purposes of inventory.

“The serial numbers of the BVD machines that are in use, also because of the rampant changing and swapping of those machines at the registration centres by the Electoral Commission. This wasn’t the promise of the Electoral Commission. It promised Ghanaians that it was ready, all was set for registration to start, where are we heading now,” he said.

The NDC Deputy General Secretary raised concerns about the unprecedented nature of such thefts and stressed the need for transparency in addressing the issue.

He emphasised that the NDC's request for the BVR serial numbers is driven by the need for accountability and to uphold the integrity of the electoral process.