Biometric Process: Why Eligible Voters Are Giving Registration Officers “A Hell of their Lifetime"

Prince Baah-Duodu

One major issue that has characterized the Biometric Registration Process across Ghana is the time taken for one person to successfully complete the whole process – it is indeed a longer one.

I therefore decided to go to my constituency and register and take the opportunity to observe the process to get at first hand, what are likely to be the main causes.

After someone securing a position for me in the queue at 2am on the 28th of March, 2012, I finally took over from this person at 7am same day and guess when I successfully completed the process?

I finally entered the registration room at about 1:30pm. This was an opportunity for me to really find out why it takes so long for each person to successfully go through the whole process.

Many people have been quick to suggest that the delays are as a result of “faulty equipments” and slow attitude of some of the registration officers.

However, I beg not to completely agree with them. This is because i observed that most people were unable to answer some basic questions such as: their names, parents' names, and their date of birth as well as the districts of their hometowns.

These caused for much time as officials had to reason with them to answer some basic questions like their date of birth/age and even the exact location where they stay.

As part of my conversations with them, I realized that most people only knew that the whole process would last for just 10days.Whiles the process have started in other areas in a constituency like mine, other areas would start at a later date in the same constituency. But, due to the fact majority of the people do not have this information, they are all compelled to go to that one area to register increasing the number of people; a danger for the main election as there would be some serious and complex queues at some places comes December 7, 2012.

However, I must be quick to add that the Electoral Commission should seriously take into account, the kind of people they hire to handle the process; it used to be teachers. Because, the spelling mistakes that were consistently made by some officials were unpardonable; imagine someone who is unable to spell his names and other details meeting an officer who is unable to help….time would be wasted and errors made to import information – I witnessed many today after successfully completing the Biometric process from 7:00am to 4:15pm (9hrs 15mins).

In all, I commend Ghanaians and the Electoral Commission for such a great process in our quest to deepen democracy. One Love Ghana!

Prince Baah-Duodu
www.baahduodu.com