Only NDC and NPP agents seen at Centres

The two leading political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) appear to be leaving nothing to chance as they keep close watch of the on-going biometric voter registration.

They have their agents present at all the registration centres in the Ashanti Region, observing the process and added to this, are special monitoring teams to enable them to have clear grasp of what is happening on the ground.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) did not come across any party agents of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), People’s National Convention (PNC), Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) and the United Front Party (UP) at all centres visited on day one of the exercise.

Compilation of the new biometric voters roll had been generally peaceful in the region with no reported nasty incident with the only problem being with the malfunctioning of some registration equipment in the early hours of the exercise.

Turnout was impressive at many of the centres with long queues formed long before the official start of the registration.

At the Zongo Police Polling Station in the Subin Constituency, 55 applicants had registered as of 1145 hours when the GNA visited.

Mr Kofi Asare, the Registration Officer, said the 43 of them are males.

At the Manhyia Palace Registration Centre, Mr Maxmillan Kwarteng, the Supervisor, said 30 people had been issued with Voter Identification (ID) Cards as of 1030 hours despite the late start caused by problems with the printer.

Baffour Yaw Boateng, Dominasehene was among the early voters to have registered.

At Ntiribuoho and Krobo Centres in the Kwabre West Constituency, people were seen standing in long queues as the registration officers struggled to fix dysfunctional machines.

Mr Anthony Obeng-Mensah, the Registration Officer, told the GNA that they had to call in technicians to deal with the problem.**