Some political party representatives, who turned out on Tuesday for the ongoing pilot registration exercise by the Electoral Commission in Tamale, were disappointed by the challenges encountered in the process.
Some of the political party representatives could simply not go through the process, because other individuals could not vouch for their Nationality as Ghanaians.
Notable among them was the Northern regional treasurer of the Convention People’s Party CPP Hajia Muniratu Mahama, who came to the piloting center without her Ghana Card, but could not fall on the vouching system to get registered.
“The guarantor system couldn’t work for me, the device couldn’t pick his details so I have to send somebody to bring my Ghana card form the house”, she lamented.
The Northern regional Director of elections for the NDC, Alhajia Mohammed Amin Abio alleged that, the EC devices were those used in the 2016 elections contrary to claims by the EC that they had procured new machines for the exercise.
He also indicated that, delays during the registration process coupled with the challenges with the vouching and system failures were enough evidence that the EC is ill prepared for the exercise.
A representative of the NPP, Shamuna Gazee, in corroborating the challenges is however optimistic that the challenges could be rectified.
He noted that, the EC had put in place the necessary COVID-19 preventive measures at the piloting center as earlier indicated.
Meanwhile, the Northern Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Lucas Yiryel told Diamond news the test run, was to identify potential challenges to enable the technical team address them before the registration day.
“All challenges has already been communicated to Head Office in Accra, so we will rectify all these challenges as soon as possible”.
The EC is undertaking the two day (Tuesday and Wednesday) piloting of the new voters registration in all 16 regional capitals ahead the nationwide exercise to be conducted at over 33,367 polling centres later this month.
Source: Edward A. Ken-Zorre | www.diamondfmonline.com |Ghana
