Accra-Ghana, Sept.16, GNA – Mr Kwame Ampadu, the Ablekuma West Municipal Electoral Officer, says the guarantor system in the ongoing Limited Voters Registration exercise is being abused.
According to Mr Ampadu, his outfit has detected a number of guarantors who have exceeded the number of eligible applicants they can guarantee for in accordance with electoral rules.
Under the electoral rules, eligible voters can either use their Ghana Card or the Ghana Passport to establish their identity as Ghanaians, and in the absence of the two identification documents, applicants would be required to present two people who are already registered voters to vouch or serve as guarantors for their citizenship and age.
The rule states that a person serving as a guarantor can guarantee for only 10 applicants.
But Mr Ampadu told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the system keeps detecting guarantors who have exceeded their target.
He said the “unholy” act is slowing down the pace of the registration.
“One major thing which is slowing us down is the guarantor system. You know with the Guarantor system, somebody will come to guarantee but once we put in the person’s information we notice that the person has guaranteed for more than 10 people, and this means that we have to change, or the applicant has to look for another person to come and guarantee for him/her.
“So that is the difficulty that we are having. Had it not been that problem, everything would have been in place,” he told the GNA.
At the filing of this report, information gathered from the from the registration team revealed that a little over 300 have managed to go through the process successfully since the commencement of the exercise on Tuesday, September 12.
On the first day of the exercise, the team registered only 51 people while the second and third day saw an increment-157 and 135 people were registered, respectively.
Apart from the guarantor system, Mr Ampadu said there were few network challenges that the team also encountered.
Despite these challenges, Mr Ampadu was hopeful that his team would be able register many applicants before the October 2 deadline.
“I have a good team and they are really pushing, and I am sure that we will achieve our target,” he remarked.
Speaking about the relationship between his officers and the various party agents present, Mr Ampadu indicated that both teams had shown mutual respect and that had made the work easier.
“As a matter of fact, they have shown respect to us, and we have also conducted ourselves very well. Whatever their grievances are, once they approach us, we try as much as possible to provide the solution and then when we are unable to resolve issues, we explain it to them and they understand,” he said.
