Stop violence at registration centres - EC to political parties

The Electoral Commission (EC) has called on political parties in the country to be decorous in discharging their responsibilities in the ongoing voters registration exercise.

The country’s election management body made this appeal at its second edition of the “Let the Citizen Know” press series in Accra on Monday.

Responding to concerns raised over influence by political parties in the registration process, a Deputy Chairman in charge of Corporate Affairs at the Commission, Dr Bossman Eric Asare, urged the media to carry the information to the parties through their platforms.

“We expect the media to send the message out there to the parties that, they have to conduct themselves very well,” he stated.

On the same issue, the Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Jean Mensah said that, its staff have received the needed training and have been sanctioned to refrain from such acts.

“I am not sure that, our staff will collude with any political party because, they have been given a lot of training and have been empowered to do the right thing,” she mentioned.

“I have my doubt that they will collude with any political party to register people who are crossing the queues,” she emphasised.

The EC chair also said that, the Commission is consistently and regularly engaging with the top hierarchy of the police to improve upon the processes, ensure law and order within our registration centres and to ensure adherence to the safety protocols that we have outlined.

“We have the challenge system, therefore, if along the way people are brought in and bussed from other communities to a particular registration centre, those people will be challenged", Mrs Mensah stated.

“The committee will sit on it and a decision will be taken as to register them or not,” she added

In a related issue, the Commission has urged applicants to assist officials at various registration centres in adhering to safety protocols to ease the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

“Safety of applicants is foremost in the registration process and the Commission will go to any length to observe the measures outlined by the Ghana Health Service,” the Commission said in a statement released on July 11.

To this effect, the EC has charged registration officers to clean the fingerprints scanners and also sanitise the hands of applicants before and after the process.

“The Commission as part of anti-COVID-19 protocols instructed officials to sanitise the hands of all applicants before and after every process,” the statement had it".

“Officials have been directed to also clean the fingerprints scanners with a wet wipe after every use during the intensive training organised for them before the exercise begun", the statement added.

The Commission has, however, indicated that, it had commenced investigations into reports on the parts of some registration officers in failing to follow safety protocols and will sanction culprits appropriately.