Effective planning, implementation and public cooperation is our magic - EC

The Electoral Commission has said the implementation of its strategic plan for the Voters Registration and the cooperation from the public has made the exercise successful.

The exercise, which started on June 30, was conducted in six phases in about 33,000 registration centres and officially ended today (August 6, 2020).

Mr Samuel Tettey, Deputy Chairman in charge of operations speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the end of the nationwide voters registration exercise rated the exercise high saying, “So far so good”.

He explained that the new Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits equipment were robust and effective compared to the previous ones and had worked to satisfaction.

“The fingerprint scans for instance, did not reject any of the applicants who showed up to register. The laptop, camera and printer functioned very well,” he said. “This is a clear indication of how vigorous and efficient the new equipment worked as compared to the old BVR.”

Mr Tettey commended the temporary personnel recruited for the exercise and said they followed the instructions and exhibited a high level of performance.

He said the mitigation measures the Commission together with the relevant stakeholders put in place to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 disease during the registration period had been successful.

Mr Tettey said the preliminary assessment attested to the fact that the registration setup was fluid and conformed to safety precautionary measures including, hand washing, wearing of mask by officers and the observation of the social distancing rule.

He said despite pockets of violence at some centres by some stakeholders, representatives of political parties, the security agencies, and some civil society organization were present to observe the process and participated to make the exercise a success.

He stated that many people showed interest in the exercise and that had led to the initial target of registering about 15 million eligible applicants being exceeded.

“For the first time in the history of the Commission there was no shortage of materials. All these indicators testify that the exercise has gone on well.”

The commission further issued a statement urging all eligible voters to take advantage of the mop-up exercise on the 8 and 9 of August, 2020 and register to be able to vote in the December 7, 2020 polls.