BA READY FOR VOTERS REGISTER (PAGE 14)

THE Brong Ahafo Regional Office of the Electoral Commission (EC) has said it is ready for the reopening of the voters register, which will go on nation-wide between July 30 and August 10, 2008.
The Deputy Regional Director of the EC, Mr James Arthur-Yeboah, told the Daily Graphic that the office had already taken delivery of some materials for the exercise, such as digital cameras, printers, registration forms, among others.
The deputy regional director, who disclosed this in Sunyani on Thursday, said to ensure a smooth start of the programme, about 1,278 field officers, including all the 19 district directors of the commission in the region, were to be trained from July 26 to July 30, 2008.
He pointed out that even though some of the district officers, cameramen and other field officers had already undergone a similar training, they still needed a brush up, in view of the important nature of the exercise..
Mr Arthur-Yeboah explained that there would be one registration team to take care of two electoral areas and that each team was made up of one cameraman, a registration officer and a shader/laminator.
He said the team would not be stationary but was expected to move within the electoral vicinity to take care of voters in distant villages.
“As usual there are bound to be challenges but we are prepared to surmount any problems, such as the inaccessibility of some the areas. We are relying on the various district assemblies to assist the commission with vehicles and other logistics in order to reach out to all the difficult areas to make the exercise a success,” he said.
The Deputy Regional EC Director also indicated that there would be a meeting with representatives of all the political parties for them to know whatever was going on regarding the exercise and also solicit their support and co-operation, since they were crucial to the whole programme.
Mr Arthur-Yeboah intimated that the political parties could be free to send their agents to observe the exercise at the various designated registrations centres but cautioned that they had no right whatsoever to interfere with the work of the EC officials, adding, however, that the EC was not bound to pay any money or provide anything for those observers sent by the parties
According to the EC officer, there would be adequate publicity on the exercise in both the local and national media to increase the awareness of the public of it, pointing out that the EC also needed the support of everyone in order to make the national exercise a success.