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26.04.2012 Politics

199,393 registered in biometric voters' registration in Tema Metropolis

By GNA
199,393 registered in biometric voters' registration in Tema Metropolis
26.04.2012 LISTEN

Tema, April 25, GNA -- One hundred and ninety-nine thousand, three hundred and ninety-three persons, have been registered in the first two phases of the ongoing nationwide biometric voters registration exercise, in the Tema Metropolis.

Out of the figure, 105,028 persons were registered in the first phase, and 94,365 participated in the exercise in the second phase.

Mr. Gabriel Manu, Tema Metropolitan Officer of the Electoral Commission (EC), disclosed these at a review meeting with representatives of political parties' and heads of departments in the Metropolis, on Tuesday at Tema.

He said in the first phase, 83,284 people were registered in the Tema East and Tema West constituencies, while 21,744 people were registered in the Kpone-Katamanso constituency.

Mr Manu said that 72,864 people were registered in Tema East and Tema West constituencies during the second phase, and 21,501 persons were registered in the Kpone-Katamanso constituency in the second phase.

He advised political parties not to encourage their supporters to only register, but they should educate and caution them against multiple registering, to avoid prosecution.

Mr Manu, however, said that some people were registered more than once through no fault of theirs, and such people would be defended as a report would be sent to the EC head office to exonerate them from double registration sanctions.

He explained that any person, who may have successfully gone through the process but was unable to receive his or her voter ID card due to some technical problems with the machine or printer, would have his data captured in the system.

Mr. Manu said that instead of editing and printing the ID cards for such few cases, some of the registration officers re-registered such people leading to double registration through no fault of theirs.

He said apart from some kits getting frozen and some misunderstandings between the officials and the agents of the political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP), the exercise had been successful in the metropolis.

Mr Manu appealed to stakeholders, especially the political parties, to follow due process, to ensure that the last phase of the exercise that would begin on Thursday would also be equally successful.

In an open forum, the representatives for both the NPP and NDC, complained of conducts of some of the registration officers in their electoral areas and accused them of not being co-operative.

They also complained of lack of shades at some of the registration centres and shortage of A4 sheets and printer cartridges for the printing of the ID cards.

GNA

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