NUMBER OF LOST VOTER ID IN UPPER EAST WORRYING (PAGE 42)

By Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga

A total of 9,655 people, comprising 9,292 resident applicants and 363 non-resident applicants registered to replace their Voters' Identity Cards in the Upper East Region during the recent Electoral Commission exercise to replace lost IDs.
The Regional Director of the EC, Mr Iddrisu Adams, disclosed this at a special regional Inter-Party Advisory Committee meeting at Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital.
The meeting, which was held on the theme; “Building Confidence in the Outcome of the 2008 Elections”, was aimed at offering the platform for the political parties to have insight into the work of the EC.
It was organised by the EC with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and KAB Governance Consult. Topics discussed included the Inbuilt Integrity of Ghana's Electoral Process; Results and Challenges of the Replacement of Lost Voter ID Cards, Revision of the Voters' Register - Challenges and Expectations; and Expectations of the Commission from Political Parties towards Credible Elections in December 2008.
Present were representatives of National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP), Convention People's Party (CPP), People's National Convention (PNC), Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), and Democratic Freedom Party (DFP).
Officials of the National Commission on Civic Education and media practitioners were also part of the meeting.
Giving a breakdown of the figures, the Regional Director of the EC said the highest figure of 2,493 was recorded in the then Kassena-Nankana District, while the Garu-Tempane District recorded the lowest figure of 652 people.
In the Bawku and Bolgatanga Municipalities as well as and Builsa District, 1,589; 1,321, and 1,012 people applied for replacement of their ID cards respectively, while in the Bongo, Talensi/Nabdam and Bawku West districts, 965, 945 and 678 people respectively applied for the replacement of their lost cards.
Mr Adams said the replacement exercise commenced in six districts on March 14, 2008 without any adverse incidents. However, the exercise was postponed in the Bawku municipality and the Garu-Tempane District on the advice of the Bawku Municipal Security Committee on the grounds that the security situation at that particular point in time was not conducive for the commencement of the exercise.
He revealed that the exercise later took off in the two areas between March 26 and 28, 2008 after the EC was notified that the curfew period had been reviewed from the prevailing 3:00 pm to 7:00 am, to 8.00 pm to 5:oo am.
The Regional Director of the EC said despite the success of the exercise in the region, there were some challenges, such as most of the non-resident voters, especially those who registered in the big towns and cities not being able to provide details of their registration centre codes and voter ID numbers during the exercise.