The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, has been advised to tread cautiously with regard to the upcoming voters' registration exercise.

The caution is coming from the Paramount Chief of the Goaso Traditional Area in the Ahafo region, Nana Akwasi Bosompra I.

According to the Paramount Chief, the Commission's decision to solely conduct the exercise scheduled to commence on September 12, at its district offices will not be in the interest of many new voters.

He insisted that many eligible voters might lack the means to travel from their villages to the EC’s district offices to partake in the exercise.

“What is Jean Mensa doing, has she been to Ahafo before? Does she know the town that follows Esumira. Does she know the town after Kasapin, so is Jean Mensa saying that all these people, if they want to write their names, should have three people and travel to Goaso? Is she going to pay for their fare?"

“She should be careful not to bring any confusion into this country because of a woman’s decision, I’m pleading with her, she should change that rule and decentralise the process.

"Because a rich person can bus people to register and vote for him, but that person is someone we may not even like.”

The Electoral Commission has announced that it will commence the 2023 voters’ registration exercise on Tuesday, September 12, and end on Monday, October 2. 

In the said announcement, the Commission added that the exercise will take place at its district offices across the country.

Jean Mensa, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, made this known on Thursday, August 17, at a press briefing in Accra dubbed, ‘Let the Citizen Know.’

She disclosed that a GH¢10 charge for the replacement of a lost or misplaced voter’s ID card.

“The voter’s registration exercise will afford Ghanaians who have attained the age of 18 years, since the last registration of 2020 and others who are more than 18 years, but for various reasons couldn’t register during the 2020 registration exercise.”

“The EC will embark on voters’ registration in all 268 district offices of the Commission. The exercise will be held from September 12 to October 2,” she disclosed.

Following this, some seven political parties in the country on Monday, August 21 expressed their displeasure about the decision.

They insisted that any decision to restrict the upcoming voter registration exercise to its district offices would not achieve its intended purpose(s).

For instance, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has issued a warning to the EC not to limit pending voters’ registration exercise at its district offices.

The party says should the EC fail to adhere to the advice, it will take legal action against it.

NDC’s Director of Legal Affairs, Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe who issued the warning said many new voters will be disenfranchised if the EC conducts the exercise in its district offices.

“The EC is applying the same law to only limit the registration to the district offices. We will explore all the available legal channels to ensure that we will get an outcome that will allow the elections to be more decentralised.

“We want to ensure that all our MPs are duly protected within the confines of our law, and we will definitely do that,” the Director of Legal Affairs for the NDC said in a media interview on Monday.