The Director of Elections and Research for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Evans Nimako, has hailed the Electoral Commission (EC) for its handling of the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.
Nimako, who was speaking on Eyewitness News on Citi FM, said the EC is right to limit the registration centres to its district offices.
According to him, creating more centres would only increase the cost of monitoring the exercise by political parties and interested parties.
“When you sit back and do the assessment, you may conclude that if the EC opens up more registration centres, it helps but the more centres you have, the more cost you will incur as a party because you will have to put together your agents to observe this process. Either way, you will incur some amount of cost and some burden,” he said.
“The New Patriotic Party put forward the argument that in 2019, additional registration centres were created by the EC for purposes of registration aside from the district offices and so it was our position we stick with the district offices.
“The unfortunate thing is that our colleagues in the NDC have elected themselves not to participate in [Inter Party Advisory Committee] IPAC discussions and the other political parties that participate are labelled as mushroom parties created by the NPP but they are today able to join forces and sue the EC.”
Nimako also dismissed allegations that the NPP is enticing registrants by giving them money and disguising it as transport fare. He said the party is committed to ensuring that all eligible persons are registered to vote.
“The New Patriotic Party is ready to facilitate the registration process for our members who are due [to vote] because the law says once you are eighteen years and above and of sound mind and your name is not already in the register, the EC must ensure that you get your name registered,” he said.