EC releases approved rate for registration officials after fervent agitation

The Electoral Commission has made public an approved rate for personnel who have been engaged in the 2020 voters registration exercise.

The development comes after a GhanaWeb publication which projected the plights of some registration officials. The personnel had expressed discontentment over the decision by the body to pay them an amount they describe as “woefully inadequate.”

They accused the EC of cajoling them into accepting to serve as officers at various registration centres with the promise of giving them appreciable remuneration only to be disappointed weeks into the exercise.

“The EC told us to start work without telling us how much we’ll be paid. We were told we will be given a hefty amount in return,” one of the aggrieved officers registered his displeasure to GhanaWeb.

“The registration started three weeks ago and a payment plan was presented to us yesterday. There is no health insurance package.”

Sounding furious and disappointed, to say the least, another personnel lamented that the treatment meted out to them is a slap in the face.

“Laminators are taking GHC60, Data Entry Clerks are taking GHC70 while Registration Officials are taking GHC80 daily. We work eleven (11) hours a day. We’ve sacrificed to work in the midst of coronavirus scare and can’t be given GHC100 a day; what kind of treatment is that? This is a matter of life and death,” the personnel fumed with rage.

Barely hours after the publication, the EC has in a memo to Regional Directors stated the approved rates for various categories of officials and instructed strict compliance.

Per the account of the officials as trumpeted in the publication and the figures projected in the memo, there has been an increase in the rates.

As evident in the memo, Laminators are expected to be paid an amount of GHC75 per day while Data Entry Clerk and Registration Officers are to be paid GHC90 and GHC100 per day respectively.

The EC also noted that monies have been allocated to cater for the transportation fares of officials.

Below is the memo.