<<Print>>

Mr John Boadu, the General-Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said there was the need to commend the Electoral Commission (EC) for executing their mandates despite some challenges it faced.

“We need to continue to commend the Electoral Commission and “like-thinking people who believe that the Ghanaian, who is qualified to partake in this year’s election is given the chance to have their names on the electoral roll.”

Mr Boadu who visited the Hohoe Municipal EC’s registration centre as part of his tour to the Volta region said “one would have thought that it is a wasteful idea, but coming round, one can clearly see there are genuine people who couldn’t register during the previous registration exercise.”

He said if not for the one-day exercise by the Commission to get those who turned 18 years and could not register, do so, would have had them disenfranchised.

The General Secretary said interactions with some officers in the region on the just-ended exhibition exercise showed that minor issues surfaced including; misplaced names or mismatches, which were corrected.

He said although the process was generally peaceful, there was the need for vigilance to ensure that people who were not qualified are prevented from being added to the electoral register.

Mr Boadu said the EC must be able to exhibit the current register being compiled and correct all anomalies before October 5 adding that he was hopeful things would be done as expected based on the Commission’s experience over the years.

He said low publicity was a challenge the EC had to work on as well as communicate with registrants, who had issues with their details in the new register after rectifying it adding that “the ultimate is not to continue this exercise, but to have a national identification system that has integrity we can all rely on to prevent chaos in the future.”

Mr Boadu said the Party had decentralised development projects such as school, hospitals, roads and extension of electricity under its special development initiatives agenda, which the citizens were pleased with and Hohoe was a beneficiary as well as other districts and communities.

“People are genuinely showing support and I believe that this will reflect. We are waiting to know how wide we will beat John Mahama once again and also increase our numbers in Parliament by adding the Hohoe Constituency.”

The General Secretary said the Volta region had over the years shown massive support towards the Party, in terms of increase in votes, influence and chances adding that winning a Parliamentary seat in the region was a 100 percent score for the NPP.

Mr Wisdom Kofi Akpabli, Supervisor at the registration centre, said a total of 100 eligible registrants were registered and issued voter identity cards adding that there was no challenge recorded.

The one-day exercise would enable citizens who attained age 18 to register and also give opportunity to citizens, who, for one reason or the other, were unable to register to do so.