The registration of 7 persons unto the new voters’ register in the Wa Municipality hit a snag after their citizenship, ages and validity of their Ghana Cards were contested.
After a hearing by the Municipal Registration Review Committee, 5 persons were disqualified and could not pick their Voter’s ID cards while one person was allowed to register.
The 7th person is expected to meet the Committee in the coming days.
This came to light when the Wa Municipal Director of the Electoral Commission, Ben Alaglo spoke to GBC at Wa.
Mr Alaglo said the entire exercise had been smooth. He mentioned that during Phases 1 and 2, the main challenges had to do with registrants failing to adhere to the safety protocols that had been put in place for the exercise.
Mr Alaglo said due to the increased presence of the Police and continued sensitisation, the challenge was surmounted.
He said the close to 87 thousand people have registered unto the new Voter’s Register which is well within the initial target of the EC.
“For Wa Municipal, it is around 87,000 people. So far we [Wa Municipal] are close to 8,000. By the close of today, we will know whether we will exceed or we will be within,” Mr Alaglo said.
The Wa Municipality has 186 registration centres. As the registration exercise ends, the GBC News Team visited some of the centres. At a majority of centres, few people showed up to register for the Voter’s ID card.
At the Jejerayiri Community Centre, only 4 people had registered for their Voter’s ID card. At the Jejerayiri JHS Registration Centre, 5 persons had registered for their ID cards while a 6th person was in the process of registering. The Registration Officer at the Jejerayiri JHS, Mohammed Sherifdeen said turnout had been low.
“As at 10:15 a.m., we had only 10 people who had registered. The turnout is low for the last day but we hope to see more people coming to register,” he said.
The EC is expected to begin a mop-up exercise in the coming days.
Story filed by Mark Smith.
