NDC asks EC to stamp authority on voters' registration

Accra, Aug. 8, GNA - Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, National Organiser of National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Friday asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to stamp its authority on the current voters' registration exercise to make the Voters' Register credible. He said; "The reported mass movement of people across regions and districts to register will lead to double registration that will make the Voters' Register blotted and it will be an abuse on the demographic figures of the nation." Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on hiccups involved in the current registration exercise, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said any extension of the exercise would lead to cost to the country and the political parties. "What is more important now is to ensure that the EC is able to iron out problems inherent in the exercise and to ensure that adequate materials got to their destinations to make the registration less cumbersome."

He said even in Accra, the queues of respective registers who have attained 18 years and above continue to grow and some registration centres were able to register only two registers for the whole day. The reason attached to this phenomenon was that there were shortages of registration materials.

Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said even if the time of the registration was extended and the materials were not there and the operations were not streamlined the problems would continue. Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said, speaking for NDC, the exercise was costing the party about two million Ghana cedis and that any cost on the extension of the registration exercise to the parties must then be borne by the EC.

Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said by the constitutional autonomy of the EC no one can dictate to it as to what to do and if anything at all, it would be at Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting that the EC could either accept or reject any suggestions that would be make to it. The EC should not be seen as being dictated to by the Executive or any other party.