Public unwilling to provide records of dead relatives

Hohoe, Oct. 9, GNA - The public's unwillingness to provide records or evidence of dead relations was hampering attempts by the Electoral Commission (EC) to expunge such records from the voters register in the Hohoe Municipality.

Only the Volta Cinema Palace Exhibition Centre at Hohoe-Zongo, one out of nine exhibition centres of the 21 for the Municipality the Ghana News Agency visited between 8 am and 10.45 am on Thursday recorded names of 12 dead people from the electoral nominal roll. Exhibition Officials at the other centres, indicated that the demand for proof by either voter's identity card, obituary or dead certificates seemed too gruelling for family members, hence their uncooperative attitudes.

They alleged that many people were willing to assist but the extra information appears to be warding them off. It was observed that the tempo of the exhibition exercise was picking up as figures collated by the GNA shows that many more eligible voters have undergone check at the various centres. The vim that characterized the registration of those who turned 18 years was absent and no queues were seen at the exhibition centres. At the Roman Catholic Primary centre, Ms Georgina Onugah said 127 prospective voters visited to check their eligibility from a list of 986, since the exercise began on Sunday. She said eleven people checked their cards as at 10.30 hours on Thursday.

Mr Richard Atiseh, Official at the Saint Teresa's Demonstration Primary said 102 voters out of 1,777 eligible voters had verified their names with eight filling forms to correct their names and ages and two with bad pictures.

At the E. P. Junior High School centre, Mr Wilberforce Drai said 249 voters out of 1,828 visited the centre. He said there were no dead entry, no 18-year category, one disable, and eight name corrections with the majority of the voters having no problems.

Mr David Acheampong, Hohoe Municipal Officer of EC said Hohoe-North and Hohoe-South Constituencies have provisional eligible voters totalling 63,663 and 31,971 respectively, with the exhibition exercise being undertaken in 106 and 66 centres.

He said on display are three voters registers for verification by eligible voters, the 2004-2006 register, the mopping register and the extraction of the 18 years register.

Mr Acheampong appealed to the general public to volunteer information that would assist the EC to present a credible register for the general election in December.