Electoral Commission urges political parties to recruit agents with ICT background
A top official at the Electoral Commission (EC) has suggested to political parties to place emphasis on people with Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) background in their recruitment of registration agents for the biometric registration exercise.
Mrs Faith Amedzake, a Deputy Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), made the suggestion when EC met representatives of political parties in Koforidua on Thursday to brief them on the biometric registration exercise and the pilot registration to be undertaken in the Eastern Region from February 25 to Tuesday February 28.
She said the background of the political parties agents to be engaged during the registration exercise was necessary to enable them understand the processes better and help reduce tensions since the biometric registration involves the use of ICT to a large extent.
Mr Erick Mensah-Bonsu, the Deputy Eastern Regional Director of the EC, said the biometric registration exercise would be done in a cluster of four polling stations and each cluster would be allocated with a set of registration kit.
The kit, which will include all the equipment for the registration exercise, will be at one polling station within the cluster for 10 days and then be moved to another polling station.
He said the exercise was expected to last for 40 days.
Mr Mensah-Bonsu said each district would have a registration plan which would be given to public education officers to go round and educate the people on the dates that they should expect the kits at their polling stations.
He appealed to the political parties to educate their supporters and sympathizers not to rush and chase the kits. They should stay at their polling stations and wait.
He said clusters for the registration exercise with high voter populations would be allocated two sets of kits, especially those in the urban areas.
Mr Mensah-Bonsu said the region had been allocated with 768 sets of kits for the exercise and provided with 16 kits, which would be on standby at the regional office for early dispatch to any cluster that would have problems with their kits.
He said the exercise had facilities for the registration of people with disabilities without hands or fingers and said arrangements were also in place for people with hearing impairment to be registered.
The daily registration data at each polling station would be taken to the district office of the EC and forwarded to the regional office for onward transmission to the national office of the EC.
He took the political party representatives through the registration exercise and assured that provision had been made for the registration at the expected new constituencies to be created by the EC this year.
Source: GNA