Ghana’s political parties have unanimously agreed to enforce biometric verification ahead of the general elections scheduled for 2016.

The landmark agreement, which the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) endorsed, was contained in electoral reform proposals submitted to the Electoral Commission (EC).

The IEA together with all political parties in the country believe that maintaining the biometric verification is expected to help ensure free and fair elections in future.

Key among the proposals is the authentication of fingerprints before a person is allowed to cast their vote.

The IEA-GPPP initiative follows the supreme court's ruling on a landmark election petition hearing that proposed reforms in the country’s electoral system.

A former chairman of NPP, Peter Mac Manu, admitted that the agreement was set to reinforce the importance of biometric verification as captured in Constitutional Instrument 175 (CI75) article 30/2 of the 1992 Constitution.

According to him, political parties have taken up the challenge to ensure future elections are “transparent, credible, civil and peaceful, which results will be accepted by all.”

“We are trying to perfect the challenges in the 2012 election particularly after the election petition so those that are good will be maintained and the bad ones will be reformed”, Manu said.

The deputy general secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kofi Adams, said they would abide by all the recommendations.

“The NDC has been committed to improving the electoral process and will always continue to abide by that. We have only championed such reforms that will improve the electoral process,” Kofi Adams noted.