The former Deputy Chief of Staff under President Mills' government has said a population census should have preceded the soon to end voters registration exercise.

Alex Segbefia said this would have ensured that accurate number of voters are captured in the new register.

"For you to have embarked on a good registration, you should have done a census. The Census was due this year; there was an existing register, Covid was also in the air.

"What needed to do was to manage the old register we used in December for the district assembly elections and get the census done next year, because technically doing a census also raises issues of Covid," he said on JoyFM's Super Morning Show.

The Electoral Commission is completing the compilation of the new register, an exercise it indicated seeks to provide a "credible voters' register for the country."

But according to Mr. Segbefia, one of the major issues that led to the exercise was concerns raised over the bloated nature of the old register which he believes has not yet been resolved.

He says the problem may still persist because there was no accurate document that confirm the total number of citizens in the country prior to the exercise.

"We needed to conduct the census, get the Ghana card issue dealt with in a systematic way that did not raise issues of Covid, then, you'll now have a document that could have actually stood the test of time so that this vouching issue would not be the norm, would actually become the exception.

"This is proper planning and thinking but here we are today. We do not know the population of this country at the moment which we should have known because it would have helped in the planning, even in terms of the numbers to print, in terms of people who are expected to be over 80," he said.