NPP Warns EC

The Western Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has warned the electoral Commission (EC) to desist from engaging in acts that have the tendency to mare the beauty of the 2016 general elections.

According to the regional NPP, it is very disgusting to note that the EC issued new voter identity cards to some registrants in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis during the just ended Voter Exhibition Exercise.

According to the regional executives, during their usual visit to some of the exhibition centres in the Kwesimintsim constituency on Tuesday, they discovered that new voter identity cards were being issued to some of the registrants.

'In fact, we were shocked and could not fathom why this should happen because the issuance of new ID cards was not part of the guidelines outlined by the EC. The political parties were also not informed that new cards will be issued to some people during the exhibition exercise,' the regional NPP executives noted.

They wondered why the EC decided to take that initiative without informing the major stakeholders in the country's elections—in this case, the political parties.

They have therefore implored the EC to tread cautiously, since the party will not tolerate any 'trick' from any quarters geared towards rigging the 2016 general elections.

Addressing a press conference yesterday, Charles Bissue, Western Regional Secretary of the NPP, expressed utter dismay at the alleged move by the EC.

He noted that the party discovered that the EC started issuing voter ID cards in the Kwesimitsim constituency, half way through the seven-day exercise, to some people who went to check their names at three exhibition centres in the constituency.

He mentioned the three exhibition centres as English and Arabic, Nyemebkyere and FSM polling stations.

Upon interrogation, the EC officials at the exhibition centres stated that there were errors on some of the Voter ID cards issued in the run-up to the 2012 general elections, hence the decision to issue new ID cards.

'If that was the case then why did the EC fail to inform all its stakeholders?

This breach by the EC could also culminate in another bloating of the voters register. We can say that the EC is deliberately taking this action to benefit its surrogates and cohorts,' he added.

He stated, 'If carefully defined rules as stipulated by the EC are being directly flouted by their own employees within the Sekondi-Takoradi

Metropolis, then we wonder what took place in other parts of the region.'

Delayed Notification
The regional NPP scribe lamented that the EC did not give political parties

enough notice to prepare for the exercise, stressing that this could lead to disenfranchising a section of the voting populace.

He explained that for instance students who might be outside the confines

of the jurisdiction within which they registered might not have the opportunity to verify their names and might be disenfranchised.

Ahanta West
Mr Bissue told journalists that his outfit had reports from the Ahanta West constituency that over 140 genuine registrants could not find their names in the voters register and were accused of double registration.

'This is appalling to say the least; if this is really the case, then the EC should cause the arrest of these people, since they have broken the law,' he stated.

Takoradi
The Regional NPP Secretary noted that in the Takoradi constituency, names of existing registrants were crossed out of the voters register under the pretext that the registrants were dead.

'At the HM Technical polling station, the total number of deceased persons

marked in the register was 15; however only two exclusion forms have been completed. Similar reports emanated from Wassa East and other constituencies in the region,' he stressed.

The Western regional NPP has therefore charged the EC to schedule a future date for another exhibition exercise before the upcoming District Assembly Elections so that all stakeholders can effectively participate in the exercise.

The party also urged the EC to furnish all political parties and the general public with the number of Voter ID cards that the EC claimed were faulty and therefore required replacement.

EC Reacts
Reacting to the assertions, Stephen Opoku-Mensah, Western Regional Director of the EC, apologised to the political parties for not informing them about the issuance of the new cards before the commencement of the exercise.

He explained that it was discovered that there were some errors on the voter ID cards of some registrants and so the EC deemed it fit to use the exhibition exercise to change the faulty cards.

FROM Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi