Rural dwellers uninformed about biometric voter registration-NCCE

Many rural dwellers seems unaware of the impending biometric registration exercise, which begins on Saturday March 24 and lasts for 40 days.

The situation came to the fore during an outreach programme by the National Commission for Civic Education in Hohoe Municipality.

This calls for greater collaboration to get the message about the exercise across, Mr Frank Amedson, Head of Programmes of the NCCE made this known at a dialogue on the biometric voter registration in Ho on Thursday.

It was organised by the Electoral Commission (EC) on the theme: “Enhancing the credibility of the 2012 Ghana Election,” which attracted representatives of the political parties, the National Commission on Civic Education and the Media.

He said personnel of the NCCE were surprised when a large section of people in a particular community claimed to be unaware of the exercise.

Mr Amedson described the situation as worrying and expressed the hope that stakeholders would quicken their efforts to ensure the success of the exercise.

Madam Laurentia Kpatakpa, Volta Regional Director of the EC appealed to traditional authorities and political parties to help educate the public about the exercise.

She said the political parties especially must be more interested in the success of the exercise because of their stake in the 2012 elections.

“This is a national exercise and the EC alone cannot do it. We must all work as a team, especially the political parties must help to ensure the success of the exercise,” she said.

Madam Kpatakpa said the exercise was necessary to ensure the integrity of the December polls and build the confidence of the electorate.

She said notwithstanding the in-built security mechanisms to ensure the credibility of the voter’s register much would depend on the commitment of stakeholders to make the system achieve its objective.

“We have put in the measures to make it impossible to do the wrong things,” she said.**