Navrongo Central By-election Kicks Off

Navrongo, March 25 - Voting began in earnest at 0700 hours on Tuesday in all 87 polling stations in the Navrongo Central Constituency by-election.

The atmosphere at the polling centres are peaceful and the polls are progressing orderly, with 43,838 registered voters in the constituency expected to exercise their franchise.

Visits to most of the polling stations by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) indicated that turn out was been encouraging, with long queues in most of the stations.

At the Abempingo polling station near Kandiga Junction, 19 people had voted as at 0730 hours, out of 831 registered voters.

At Dorba Junior Secondary School (JSS), seven people had voted as at 0730 hours out of 450 registered voters. At the ! Walenkaki Junction polling station, 27 out of 415 registered voters had cast their votes as at 0750 hours.

At Palobia JSS 'A' polling station 38 out of 644 registered voters had voted as at 0800 hours. At the Old GBC Block 'A' polling station, 85 out of 520 registered voters had exercised their franchise as at 0820 hours.

There were, however, few hitches at some centres in the course of the rounds. For instance, at the Basina Primary polling station some registered voters bearing their Identity Cards could not trace their names in the register.

At Palobia JSS 'A', the Presiding Officer, Mr James Adjei, said he was unable to use the voters register because voters' names on the register did not tally with their serial numbers. Consequently, the Presiding Officer resorted to the Voters' Reference book for the exercise.

The Regional Minister, Mr Mahami Salifu and Mr David Adenze-Kangah, Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission in charge of Administration, had separately gone round some of the polling stations to acquaint themselves with the situation on the ground.

Ironically, just as the entire country would be monitoring the polls, telecommunication links in Navrongo collapsed on Tuesday, making communication to or from Navrongo impossible.

An official of the District Office of Ghana Telecom, who wished to remain anonymous, told the GNA in Navrongo that the main exchange went off around 2000 hours on Monday and that a report had been sent to the Regional Office in Bolgatanga for attention.