Right from the beginning of the exercise, we have been very successful- EC

The acting Director of Public Affairs for the EC SylvIa Annoh, has described this year’s voter’s registration exercise as the best the country has had. Her comments comes as the commission draws the curtain on the final phase of the registration exercise.

According to the Commission, despite the initial setbacks with congestion 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 take this opportunity to thank the good people of Ghana for their support and interest in the work of the Electoral Commission particularly with the registration exercise”.

SylvIa Annoh

She further indicated that the proactive manner with which the commission reacted addressed the challenge via the usage of the chit system which salvaged the situation of social distancing.

 “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 registering, 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”.

As was reminiscent of the registration exercise, Sylvia indicated that, officials who violated regulations pertaining to their duties were 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”.

Currently, 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. However, it posits that 15 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”.