Political parties urged to present credible persons for training

Koforidua, Nov 18, GNA - Mr David Kanga, a Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), on Wednesday urged political parties to present credible persons for training as polling agents to ensure that Election 2004 was smoothly conducted.

Mr Kanga, who was speaking at a day's Training of Trainers' Workshop in Koforidua for polling agents of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, said in the past elections, polling agents doubted the honesty of each other resulting in misunderstanding. He said: "We have realized from the experience of the past elections that, most of the party agents were vindictive on the polling day, creating nuisance at the polling station because of the mistrust they had for others."

Mr Kanga said to prevent this development form recurring the EC had decided to organise a uniform programme for all party agents, instead of allowing the various political parties to undertake the task. He said the EC was in control of electoral programmes towards the conduct of free and fair election.

The Eastern Region Director of the EC, Mr Sam Ntow said the training was aimed at sensitising the participants on specific duties of election officials on the polling day, "so that the agents would be familiar with the procedures to ensure cooperation among them at the polling stations".