Limited Registration: Young registrants stranded over ‘missing’ venues

Registrants in the Ashanti regional capital are still finding it difficult locating the venue for the limited voter registration exercise 15 days after commencement.

The development appears to mirror the concerns of the opposition and civil society organisations who predicted that distance to district EC offices will prevent many from registering.

The situation is even made worse in Kumasi as the Electoral Commission offices are located in a secluded first class residential area where commercial vehicles hardly pass.

Some frustrated applicants who live outside the district were worked up sharing with Ultimate News their struggles in locating the EC office at the Regional Coordinating Council.

One of them who had spent about GH?12.00 transporting himself from Kofrom to the registration centre narrated “we have spent too much on transportation. This place is too far.”

The National Commission for Civic Education would take the flack for these lapses in relaying public education about the exercise. But its regional director Wilson Arthur insists though their information vans went round, the difficulty was expected.

“Some are in remote areas so if they are to move to the EC offices, many people will not do it due to transportation. Some will not even hear about it,” Arthur said.

Some commercial drivers are cashing in on the situation as they have been contracted by Political Party Officials to convey people to the registration centres.

One of the drivers told reporter Comfort Lawer “the exercise is for twenty-one days. If my car doesn’t develop a fault and I am able to complete all, it will really help. The cars in the system are a lot so business is not really good. I wish I will always get these contracts”.



Another indicated, “There is no driver who doesn’t like contracts like this. If they hadn’t called us, we would have been queuing at the station waiting for our turn”.

Until some interventions are quickly thought out several of these teeming eligible voters stand the risk of being disenfranchised in the upcoming District Level Elections.