People besiege centres to beat deadline

Sunyani, May 15, GNA - Most voter registration centres in Sunyani were on Monday besieged by people who wanted to check on their names or to register before the exercise ends.

Anxious to beat the deadline, scores of people formed long queues at the centres visited by the Ghana News Agency. This was in sharp contrast to the slow response at the commencement of the exercise when most of the centres were virtually "deserted".

At the Twene Gyanfo Secondary School number one centre, Mr Bismark Osei-Atta, officer in charge told the GNA that even though public response to the exercise was initially slow there had been a rush at the centres since last Saturday. He complained about the shortage of forms and films for pictures of newly registered voters, which hampered the progress of the exercise.

Mrs Theresah Bekoe, officer in charge of the Presbyterian JSS number two centre confirmed that the pace of the exercise had picked up remarkably since the weekend.

A visit to the Tata restaurant, Stadium Primary number one and Bakers' co-operative and other centres revealed an influx of people. On the call for an extension of the exercise, most registration officials the GNA talked to were non-committal.

They admitted that though the lack of registration forms initially affected the exercise, the situation improved later on and expressed the hope that by the end of the exercise on Monday, everybody might be catered for.

Meanwhile, a number of registration officers have appealed to the police to take action against those who assaulted two of their colleagues, during the exercise. They said one registration officer was violently heckled by a group of people because "he was asking too much questions."

They said another one was also beaten up by known members of a political party because one Mr K. Frimpong of the Presby JSS number two centre, had allegedly insulted the President.