By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Sept. 12, GNA – Many eligible first-time voters thronged the Tema Metropolitan office of the Electoral Commission of Ghana at Community four as the voter-limited registration took off nationwide on Tuesday.
The office, which caters for voters in Tema East and Tema Central Constituencies, had a seamless start without hitches as canopies and benches were made available at the office’s forecourt for the registrants with the help of an assemblyman.
Some of the registrants had to move inside the main office and veranda, while others remained under the canopies when it began to rain.
When the Ghana News Agency visited the premises, registrants were in a queue, waiting for their turn to go through the process.
Representatives of the two main political parties, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), were positioned at the various stages to ensure that non-eligible voters were not added to the register.
Mr. Manasseh Ofosuhene Asante, the Tema Metropolitan Officer of the EC, told the GNA that as of 1030 hours, 10 people had successfully gone through the exercise, stating that even though the network was a bit slow, they hoped to register an average of 300 people each day.
Mr. Asante said his office was using two sets of biometric voter registration machines to ensure that all eligible voters were captured by the end of the exercise.
He said they received 12,000 registration forms from the EC’s head office for the exercise and would request for more if necessary.
On accessibility for persons with disability, he said their office did not have rumps to aid such persons, especially those in wheelchairs, adding however that they would resort to carrying the applicant into the office to be captured.
He said priority would be given to PWDs and pregnant women to be registered to make them comfortable.
Answering a question on what will happen in case of power failure, he stated that the office did not have a generator and would therefore have to wait till power was restored, adding that they could also fall on organisations and individuals for one for the exercise to go on.
He said his outfit would issue chits to persons in the queue by 1600 hours, and those who are still in the queue at the 1500 hour closing time to report the next day with the chit to be registered.
He advised eligible voters to follow the requirements and report with the necessary documents or with two guarantors to go through the exercise.
Mr. Rashid Ayub, a 20-year-old who successfully went through the process, told the GNA that he had a smooth process and was the ninth to be registered, adding that he joined the queue at 0600 hours and got registered by 1020 hours.
GNA