Ballot Papers for Upper East Yet to Arrive in Bolgatanga

Bolgatanga, Dec. 28, GNA - Ballot papers meant for the District Assembly elections on Wednesday are yet to arrive in the Upper East Region for onward dispatch to the various electoral areas before election commence= s at 0700hours.

As at 12:45hours when the GNA visited the Regional Office of the Electoral Commission (EC), election officers were busy sorting voting materials for the various electoral areas in the Region. The district assembly and unit committee elections scheduled for Tuesday 28 December 2010 had to be postponed following delay in the distribution of ballot papers to some regions including the Upper East. Mr Bruce Ayisi, Upper East Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, said in view of the delay in carting the ballot papers to the Region, the Regional Directorate on Monday dispatched a smaller van to augment a bigger truck already in Accra to convey the election materials.

He indicated that 93the van is just to get to Accra and lift the materials and return" and expressed the hope that by 0400hours on Wednesd= ay it should be possible to get the materials set for dispatch to the various electoral areas.

Mr Ayisi said the ballot papers for the district assembly election wer= e ready and 93officers are busy working on them, and so when the ballots for the unit committee arrive by tomorrow we would only have to add them to the others and dispatch them immediately". Asked why arrangements were not made to cart the materials by air via the Tamale Airport, Mr Ayisi responded that he was not aware of any such alternative arrangement and that if there were to be any such a thing it would have to come from the Headquarters.

Some members of the public the GNA spoke to argued that the election was a national assignment and that the EC should have liaised with the Military to airlift the materials to various vantage points for onward dispatch. Mr Henry Adivila, a Sales and Marketing representative of Hills Pharmaceuticals, suggested to the EC to engage the Ghana Air Force in futur= e to cart the materials by air to distant regions and electoral areas. A total number of 2,658 candidates have filed their nominations to contest the forthcoming District Assembly and Unit Committee elections in the Region.

Out of the number, 2,764 are contesting at the Unit Committee level while 894 are contesting at the Assembly level. At the District Assembly level, only 70 women have filed to contest compared to 824 men. Builsa District has the highest number of female constants while Bawku Municipality has the least number of two female contestants.