This is Ghana's best registration exercise so far - EC

The Electoral Commission has described this year’s voter’s registration exercise as the best the country has had.

The remarks come as the EC completes its final phase of the exercise.

According to the Commission, despite the initial challenges with overcrowding and non-compliance to social distancing and other COVID-19 protocols, its quick introduction of measures to resolve the issues has led to a smooth exercise at many centers across the country

“It’s been very impressive, right from the scratch. Right from the beginning of the exercise, we have been very successful and we want to take this opportunity have to thank the good people of Ghana for their support and interest in the work of the Electoral Commission particularly with the registration exercise,” acting Director of Public Affairs for the EC Sylvia Annoh told Starr News.

She further stated that “initially we had some teething problems, we had issues with some of the registration centers not social distancing so we quickly moved in with the chit system that enabled us to deal with the numbers. You can attest to the fact that the numbers have significantly dropped.

“Now you go to certain registration centers and the whole day you see only 11 people have registered, at times 12, 14 and the officials just sit and wait for qualified applicants to turn up. So it tells you a story that initially there was a school of thought that we were not going to all registration centers so they trooped to certain centers other than their original centers”.

The Commission added that some of its officers who were found to have violated its rules have also been fired.

“So let me say that the exercise has been very successful. Apart from that we have had to check some of our officials who were going contrary to our rules and regulations to the extent that some were even fired. But thankfully and generally speaking, we can all attest to the fact that this has been the best registration exercise that we have had,” Madam Annoh asserted

The Commission is in the final phase of the exercise which began on the 30th of June 2020. The Commission set a 16 million target for the exercise. It says over 14 million Ghanaians have so far been registered onto the new voter’s roll with the exercise ending on August 6 2020.

“We have gone past 14 million registered voters across the country, we will provide the details of the regional breakdown at today’s (August 3 2020) press briefing” Acting Director of Public Affairs for the EC Sylvia Annoh said