Oti Regional NCCE Director Calls for Extension of Voters' Registration

By Alberto Mario Noretti

Ho — THE National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in the Oti Region has called for an extension of the limited voters' registration exercise, saying that a large number of eligible voters did not benefit from the exercise due to its short time frame and technical constraints.

According to Mr Patrick Cudjoe Asiedu, Deputy Volta/Oti Regional Director of the NCCE, a thorough monitoring of the registration exercise in 98 communities in six of the eight districts of the region, revealed that a large number of eligible voters could not register.

Speaking to the Ghanaian Times in an interview in Ho on Monday, he said apart from the short time frame of the exercise, the smoothness of the exercise at some stages was held back by technical problems.

For instance, he said that after the exercise commenced, there was power outage in the Oti Region for two days, and that adversely affected the progress of the exercise at the various registration centres.

According to Mr Asiedu, the people of the region turned up at the registration centres in their numbers with enthusiasm, but many could not have their turn to register before the exercise ended.

The NCCE deputy regional director, however, did not give out figures readily at the time of filing this report, to buttress that assertion.

The exercise which began on June 17, ended on July 7.

Meanwhile, Mr Asiedu has made it clear that contrary to earlier allegations by a section of the public, underage children and Togolese citizens did not take part in the limited voters' registration exercise in the Oti Region.

"Those allegations from Kpasa and some of the communities are totally false and baseless," he insisted.

Mr Asiedu stated that the monitoring of the registration centres by the NCCE operatives confirmed that no non-eligible voter was registered in the exercise.

"The districts covered by the monitoring team included Biakoye, Jasikan, Kadjebi, Nkwanta South, Nkwanta North and Krachi districts," he added.

To avoid hold-ups in future voter registration exercises, the NCCE deputy director called for a continuous registration system to enable eligible voters to call at the offices of the Electoral Commission with their details, anytime at their convenience, to register.

Read Full Story