Politicians urged to educate supporters on how to vote properly
An official of the Electoral Commission (EC) in the Upper West Region has appealed to leaders of political parties not to concern themselves only with calls on their supporters to register and vote, but to also pay attention to educating them on how to vote properly without spoiling ballot papers during polls.
Mr Festus Wiredu Amankwah, Lawra District Director of EC made the appeal at a Regional Delegates Conference of the National Association of Local Government (NALAG) held in Wa on Tuesday to elect a Representative for the Association.
“Many at times we hear from politicians calling on their supporters to go out there and register in their numbers and vote for their parties but they often forget about educating their supporters or the electorate on how to vote properly to help reduce the large numbers of spoilt ballot papers during polls.”
Mr Amankwah therefore called on political parties and their leaders to integrate the education of their supporters on proper voting procedures during their campaigns, saying that would be more beneficial to them and to the EC as well.
Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed Sherif, General Secretary of NALAG announced that Government had procured 397 motorcycles to be distributed to assembly members in the nine District Assemblies of the Region.
He said the package was a manifestation of government’s commitment to facilitating the movement of assembly members to interact with people in their electoral areas to enhance grassroots democracy and the decentralization process.
Alhaji Sherif, however, said the various assemblies would decide the modalities of ownership of the motorbikes and not NALAG or the Ministry.
He called on members of the Association to network and lobby to improve their working conditions, and also to avoid agitations that had the tendency of disrupting government’s policies and programmes in the communities.
Alhaji Sherif appealed to government to establish an Oil Fund to resource the district assemblies, saying ex-gratia of assembly members should be paid through such a fund and not through the assemblies’ internally generated funds.
Naa Abu Abdul-Rahman beat Mr Alhassan Sulemana by 23 votes to 2 votes to emerge as the Region’s representative on the Association.
Naa Abdul-Rahman appealed to district assemblies in the Region to network and come out with a uniform tax regime and, also, to pool their resources to establish vocational and technical training schools in the Region to cater for the numerous school drop-outs.
Source: GNA