Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Andrew Egyapa Mercer has given the Electoral Commission (EC) “excellent” rating on the success of the voters’ registration exercise.

This, he said, was in spite of the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) “vociferous opposition” against the new compilation exercise.

Mr Mercer further described the exercise so far as “largely successful, particularly in view of the issues that evolved prior to the commencement of the process itself”.

He was emphatic the total number of voters captured during the registration does not “support the allegation that some deliberate intent was put in place to suppress or discriminate against people from getting their name of the roll”.

According to him, the EC has, as a matter of fact, exceeded its target for the exercise.

“If you consider that the registration actually took place at an excess of 33,000 registration centres, albeit in phases, you cannot but conclude [that] irrespective of the fact that we’ve seen some challenges which obviously is not new with our voters’ registration process in this country, the Electoral Commission has exceeded the target that they set for themselves," he said.

On whether the new compilation was necessary, the Vice Chairman of the Communications Committee of Parliament said that the old register could be likened to a deflated ball being used in a football match.

He added that it was important to have “a system that both sides and even the managers of the elections themselves could guarantee its efficiency”.