BRONG AHAFO RECORDS SIGNIFICANT LOSES IN VOTER ID CARDS (PAGE 39, MIRROR)

Story: Akwasi Ampratwum-Mensah Sunyani

The Brong Ahafo Regional office of the Electoral Commission (EC) recorded a total of 39,021 applications for the replacement of voters lost identification (ID) cards with 36,424 being resident applicants while 2,594 were non-resident ones, at the end of the recent exercise.
The resident applicants were registered voters who lived in the electoral areas where the replacement centre was located while the non-resident applicants were registered voters who did not stay in the electoral area where the centre was sited but had come there just to apply for the replacement of their lost ID cards.
Mr Mark Kojo Anyimadu, the Brong Ahafo Regional Director of the EC who disclosed this in Sunyani, also indicated that the Sunyani municipality recorded the largest number of applications for lost ID cards with a total of 3,802, followed by the Dormaa, Berekum, Asutifi and Techiman areas with 3,442, 3,109; 3,071 and 3,047 respectively.
Speaking on the topic, “Results and Challenges of the Replacement of lost ID cards”, at a special Regional Inter-Party Advisory Committee Forum, Mr Anyimadu further indicated that the low number of applications were recorded in Kintampo South (1,200), Pru (1,205) Atebubu- Amantin (1,077) and Sene (1,088).
The forum which was also attended by media personnel was held on the theme, “Building Stakeholders Confidence in the Outcome of the 2008 Elections” and was jointly organised by the EC, the Frederick Ebert Stiftung (FES) and KAB Governance Consult.
According to the Regional EC Director, male applications for replacement of their cards far outnumbered those of females and explained that the situation was due to the fact that women took better care of their ID cards than their male counterparts.
Mr Anyimadu said that the replacement exercise was fraught with the problem of inadequate personnel for centres since only one registration officer was engaged at a centre instead of two, a situation, which he said affected the rate of work, especially at those centres where there were as many as six or more registers from which an officer was to check on applicants’ particulars.
Another major problem the director observed was that the replacement officers had to contend with the unwieldy nature of some electoral areas, and that some additional replacement centres were created but said these were inadequate to cater for all prospective applicants.
Again, Mr Anyimadu pointed out that the huge geographical sizes of some of the electoral areas and long distances from replacement centres tended to discourage some registered voters whose ID Cards were lost and needed replacement.
According to the director, publicity on the national media to kick-start the exercise in the regions was low and discouraging from the beginning, adding that another challenge the EC faced was the low participation of the major stakeholders, that is the political parties in the exercise.
The Director of Human Resource and General Services, Mr Samuel Yorke-Aidoo, who also spoke on the topic, “The Forthcoming Voters’ Registration Exercise – Expectations and Challenges”, took the participants through the various provisions in the Constitution that dealt with the conduct of elections in the country, adding that those laws carry penalties.
He urged the political parties not to be only interested in finding faults with the registration exercise when it was opened later in the year but rather provide solutions to the faults they identified.
Mr Yorke-Aidoo further advised that the media should also not turn their houses, especially the air waves into “courts of law”, where they become judges prosecuting officials of the EC.
A representative of FES, Mrs Rosetta Nutsugah, noted that inter-party dialogue and co-operation had the greatest potential of eliminating cynicism, mistrust, rancour and bitterness among members of the political divide and contributed to increased level of trust amongst them.
Mr Ebenezer Aggrey-Fynn, a member of the commission, in handling his topic, “The Inbuilt Integrity of Ghana’s Electoral process”, pointed out that conducting elections was a complex process and that if one of the components was destroyed, the whole mechanism would collapse.
Nana Amba Eyiaba, who is also a member of the EC and spoke on, “Towards Credible Elections – Our Expectations of Political Parties”, called on the various political parties to educate their followers to behave well in the run-up to the December elections adding that they should respect the rights and freedoms of their opponents.
Nana Eyiaba, who again chaired the function, further urged the parties not to induce their members to engage in multiple registration and voting as well as discourage minors from registering and voting.
Mr John Owusu Agyeman, the Brong Ahafo Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), suggested during an open forum that results declared at the end of the ballot at the various polling stations, should be posted on public notice boards and at the precincts of the stations as a measure to avoid disputes.
Other representatives at the meeting who contributed to the discussion were the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Conventional People’s Party (CPP), People’s National Convention (PNC), the Ghana National Party (GNP), Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE) and the Democratic People’s Party (DPP).