‘Provide funds for cleaning voter register’ - Osei-Ameyaw

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Asuogyaman Constituency of the Eastern Region, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to provide funds to assembly and unit committee members to assist in deleting names of deceased persons from the voter register in the respective electoral areas.

The EC, by an official letter dated April 6, 2016 and signed by the deputy chairperson in charge of finance and administration, Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, directed all district electoral officers to ask the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to tell the assembly and the unit committee members to go round their respective electoral areas and identify all deceased persons whose names are in the register so that they could be deleted.

Mr Osei-Ameyaw said the EC’s directive must be supported with funds to enable the assembly and the unit committee members to go round and do that assignment effectively.

“We as parliament have already approved funds for the EC to clean the register and we expect the EC to equally provide funds to enable these selected people to help in cleaning the voter register,” he asserted, adding that if that provision was not made, most of the unit committee members would be unwilling to carry out that assignment, which has become mandatory as directed by the Supreme Court, to ensure free and fair elections.

He charged the EC to also make sure that all the assembly and the unit committee members are provided with copies of the electoral roll to make their work easier and more effective.

Meanwhile, Mr. Osei-Ameyaw, who is an advocate for effective local government system, has asked all (Assembly) members to liaise with their various assemblies to determine their indicative range of emoluments before the general conference of the National Association of Assembly Members, which is likely to take place at the end of this month.