Western Region: EC misses out on 150,000 target

• Posted on May 10, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

STAKEHOLDERS have expressed fear that the Electoral Commission (EC) is likely to miss out on its target of capturing some 150,000 new voters in the limited registration exercise.

This is because at the end of the first phase of the exercise, the commission registered some 49,775 applicants.

This means that the second phase of the exercise must exceed 100,000 before the commission can meet its 150,000 target.

Despite the huge shortfall, the regional EC boss, Stephen Opoku Mensah, was hopeful the target would be met.

Speaking to The Finder, he said, “For some strange reasons Ghanaians generally wait till the last minute before rushing to participate in such exercises. I am, therefore, hopeful that things would pick up”.

He disclosed that 416 applicants had their eligibility challenged in the Western Region at the end of the first phase of the exercise.

On shortage of materials, he said presiding EC officers at the designated polling stations should have alerted the district and regional offices of the EC to assist them when they were running out of the registration materials. “Perhaps they might have underestimated the numbers,” he acknowledged.

There were pockets of disturbances at various polling stations in the region throughout the exercise.

The Finder gathered that in the Juaboso Constituency, for instance, there were reports of intimidation and violent conduct of ‘machomen’ dispatched to some polling stations by political parties.

There were also reports of minors, foreigners, particularly Ivorians, being assisted to register at some polling stations in the Juaboso and Jomoro constituencies to the anger of political party agents.

As usual, the two leading political parties in the country, NDC and NPP, took to the media to accuse each other of being the worse culprits in the various issues that came up during the exercise.

From Zambaga Rufai SAMINU, Takoradi