Tema Comm 8 residents unhappy with breakdown of registration machine

Residents of Tema Community Eight have expressed their displeasure at the breakdown of the Biometric Voter Registration kit allocated to the Community Eight Number Four School Registration Centre in the on-going registration exercise.

Some of the residents including the young and the old, had been queuing at the centre for the past five days when the machine broke down and the registration officers have failed to turn up.

The registration kit for the Sraha Electoral Area which was said to have broken down on the sixth day of the third phase of the registration exercise was yet to be replaced or returned.

When the Ghana News Agency went to the registration centre at about 1000 hours, there were people seated in groups still awaiting their turns to be registered.

Nana Boadu, a 73-year-old resident, did not hide his disappointment when he said he reported at the centre at about 0400 hours and still did not know whether the registration officials would report to the centre.

Mr Alex Korsah, another resident also told the GNA that, it was unfortunate that they have been queuing at the place for the past five days without being registered. He said though they had left their jobs, there was nothing going on at the centre.

He appealed to the Electoral Commission to extend the registration period since most of them were yet to register due to the break-down.

Mr Joseph Kofi Frimpong, polling station chairman of the New Patriotic Party for the area, said it was sad that this was happening at the centre and that no official of the EC had visited the place to explain the issue to the residents.

Mr Rockson Woode Gakpo, National Democratic Congress (NDC) polling agent at the centre, said on the sixth day of the third phase of the registration, the machine broke down at about 11 am after 14 people have been registered.

Mr Gakpo said, though his party officials informed him that the exercise would resume on Thursday, the officials were yet to report to the centre at the time of the visit.

Mr Gabriel Manu, Tema Metropolitan Electoral Officer, confirmed the break-down of the machine, saying it had been sent to the Greater-Accra Regional Office of the EC for repairs.

He said it was unfortunate that the registration officers have defied orders to paste a note at the centre, or be present to clarify the situation to the eager people.

Meanwhile, the last phase of the exercise took off smoothly at some centres visited in the Tema East Constituency.

While a long queue characterized registration at the Community Nine Redemption K.G Centre, there were relatively few people at the Teachers’ Resource Centre, Padmore Street School, and Tema Joint Church Centres.**