General News of Wednesday, 11 May 2016

Source: rainbowradioonline.com

Limited Registration: We have achieved our estimated target - EC

Samuel Tettey Martin Samuel Tettey Martin

The Electoral Commission (EC) says the number of persons captured onto the biometric data in the limited registration exercise represents the registerable population.

The Commission projected that it was expecting about 1.2 million new registrants to be captured on the electoral roll.

At the end of the exercise, the provisional figure available to the EC from the 10 regions, stands at 1, 105, 686 which represents 92 percent of the total expected figure anticipated by the Commission.

Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Mr. Samuel Tettey Martin, said the EC have clearly achieved their target.

In relations to the applicants who were not able to register during the exercise, Mr. Tetteh Martin said they will have the opportunity to register when the continuous registration exercise begins.

He noted, the continuous registration exercise could begin immediately if political parties agree on the modalities set by the EC.

This information is coming at a time that the EC is being pressured to extend the registration exercise to cover those who could not register particularly, students at the various tertiary institutions.

The University Students Association of Ghana (USAG) has hinted suing the EC for disenfranchising their eligible members from getting their captured onto the electoral roll because they failed to provide adequate centres leading to a number of eligible students not able to register.

But Mr. Samuel Tettey Martin stressed all eligible persons who were not able to get their names captured on the register will surely be captured should the parties agree on the modalities set for the process at the various District offices of the Commission.

Speaking to rainbowradionline.com, the Director of Electoral Services noted one of the basic purposes of the registration is to capture all eligible persons on to the electoral roll in a transparent and inclusive manner.