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Politics of Sunday, 25 March 2012

Source: GNA

EC urged to tackle cross border registration

Ms Veronica Anai, Ho Central Constituency Women’s Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has alleged that persons claiming to be Ghanaians, were coming from neighbouring Togo to some border communities in the Ho Municipality to register in the on-going biometric voters registration in Ghana.

She, therefore, called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to come out with clear guidelines for handling cases of persons claiming to be Ghanaians, who might come from neighboring countries to register in the voters' registration exercise.

Ms Anai alleged that such people some of whom could indeed be Ghanaians were being guided by some politicians to register in the registration exercise even though they have Togolese Voters Identity Cards as well.

She raised the concern at the Atikpui R.C Primary School Registration Centre during an observation tour of some border communities in the Municipality by a team of journalists.

Ms Anai, said Atikpui is a border community in Ghana separated from Togo by River Tordze, and indicated that: “This is a case of dual citizenship of a sort, which must be discussed and parameters of managing it determined”.

She said three people, who crossed over from Togo to Atikpui to register as voters without any Ghanaian identification document, were prevailed upon to abandon the attempt.

At the R.C. Lower Primary Registration Centre at Shia, also a border community, Mr Martin Kportufe, a registration officer, said one person’s registration had been challenged on suspicion of being a non-Ghanaian.

The registration officer said he was sure supposed Ghanaians across the border in Togo, were “only waiting for one or two of their colleagues to come over to register as a cue for them to troupe in.”

Other registration centres GNA visited were R.C. Primary School Centre Klave, R.C. Primary School Centre, Lume-Atsyame, R.C. Junior High School Centre, Matse-Tsife and Saint John Bosco Vocational Training Centre at Tokokoe.

Three hundred and sixty-four people were registered on the first day of the exercise at the six centres.

Some of the centres reported that they had no fuel to power their generators, no batteries, and non-delivery of certain reports sheets

Officers working at the Klave R.C. Primary School centre complained that the EC, their employers, were not concerned about their welfare.

They said they worked all day without food and they had to spend their own money to cart materials dumped at Shia some three kilometers away by motorbike.

Christian Ametorwoshie and Timothy Atsui, leaders of the team, corroborated these concerns and asked the EC to come out quickly with compensation packages to motivate them.

Only New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congressagents were observing the registration at the centres visited, all of whom said the exercise was orderly.

Time spent on registration of one person appears to be improving from between 35 to 40 minutes on the first day of the exercise to between 15 and 30 minutes on Sunday at the centres GNA visited.**