Bolgatanga, March 16, GNA - Mahami Salifu, Upper East Regional Minister, on Tuesday urged political party representatives at registration centers to refrain from interfering with the ongoing voter registration exercise.

"Your duty is only to stay around and ensure that no cheating or other irregularity takes place at the centers", he said. The Regional Minister, who toured some areas in the Bawku West and Bolgatanga districts to assess the turn-out for the registration exercise, also took the opportunity to explain the importance of the exercise to the people present.

At Tanga in the Bawku West District where he hails from, Mr Salifu had his name entered in the voters register and interacted with the people who had turned up at the local primary school to register. He urged them to put their domestic activities aside for a while so as to respond massively to the on-going exercise, emphasizing that their support for any political party or candidate of their choice would be of no effect if they did not register.

Other places the Regional Minister toured in Bawku West included the Zebilla market square and Teshie Primary school registration centers. At the Zebilla market registration center, 70 people had registered as at 1350 hours. The registration officer in charge, Mr Mohammed Shaibu said the exercise began at 0700 hours prompt. The turn-out there was heavy, with a lot of people waiting in the queue for their turn. The situation at the Teshie Primary school was not as encouraging as the centre was virtually empty at the time of the visit.

Mr Nsoh Anaba, registration officer in-charge, said 17 people had registered as at 1315 hours. He attributed the low turn-out to the people's habit of attending to their dry season gardens first before coming to register later in the day.

At the Plaza registration centre in Bolgatanga central, the Regional Minister personally prevented three under-age school boys from registering. One of them said he was 17 years while the other two claimed they were born in 1986. Mr Salifu asked the latter to go and bring their birth certificates to convince the registration officer that their claim was authentic.

As at 1100 hours, 60 people had registered at the centre. At the Junior Staff Quarters registration centre, the exercise took off effectively at about 0730 hours, and 20 people had registered as at 1035 hours.

Later in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, Mr Adam Iddrisu, Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, said the late arrival of registration material had brought about a brief delay in the take-off at some centres. However, all 1,028 registration centres in the region had now been supplied with cameras and other requisite material, he added.

Mr Iddrisu further stated that photo technicians had also been assigned to all eight districts in the region to monitor the exercise and to help resolve any problems related to the use of the cameras. He was optimistic that with these arrangements in place, the exercise would proceed smoothly in the subsequent days.