General News of Monday, 13 July 2020

Source: 3news.com

We won’t extend registration for all centres – EC

Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of Electoral Services at the EC Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of Electoral Services at the EC

The Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) has explained that it is not automatic that there would be extensions in all the registration centres across the country.

The EC says some registration centres have fewer voting population and if the number of people in a particular centre has been exhausted, there is no need to extend the period at these centres.

Some registration centres of the EC across the nation on Sunday experienced some technical challenges and were unable to start registration on time.

Other centres could not even register prospective voters at all.

This created anxiety at these centres as those who trooped there got stranded.

Reacting to the development on Onua TV’s Maakye hosted by Bright Kwasi Asempa and Adwoa Koadu-Yiadom on Monday, the Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, explained that the challenges were as a result of poor network from the EC’s headquarters to the various districts across the country.

“The registration centres have resumed operations [Monday] morning but we needed to have activated our network and that gave us the challenges.

“Some had it, others did not but the grace of God it is working now. We had to increase the centres from 3,000 to 6,000. The national database sends the code to the district offices and these challenges came between the two,” he said.

Dr. Quaicoe said “extension is yes and no. No because if the number of people at a polling station has been exhausted, we shall not extend the registration but if there are more people in some stations, we shall add more days”.

“Till the last person is registered, we are not ending the registration,” he assured.