Minister Chides DCE Over Biometric

The Western Regional Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo, last Friday vented his spleen on the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Shama in the region, Enock Kojo Appiah, for allegedly refusing to visit registration centres under his jurisdiction to assess the progress in the ongoing biometric registration exercise. This was after the regional minister had asked the DCE whether he (DCE) had been visiting the registration centres in the district when the third phase of the registration exercise began. The DCE answered in the negative but stressed that he had visited some of the centres during the first phase of the exercise. The visibly unhappy regional minister blatantly told the Shama DCE that �it is your duty to frequently visit all the registration centres in the district. You have put party agents at all the centres but you have refused to visit them�. These came to light when the regional minister visited some registration centres in the Shama constituency last Friday to assess the progress of work and to learn at first hand some of the challenges the registration officers were going through. The regional minister�s first port of call was at Ata-ne�Ata D.A Primary School registration centre, where the officer in charge, Moses Wetsi, told him that the centre had registered 387 eligible voters since the third phase of the exercise began last Sunday. At Public Square Asemasa No.1 registration centre, the officer in charge, Isaac Appiah, told the minister that a total of 167 electorates had registered between Sunday and Friday and mentioned that the centre had not encountered any difficulty since the exercise began. When the regional minister got to the Nenamu Square registration centre in Shama, a total of 232 potential voters had been registered. The registration officer, Bernard Bosomprah, indicated that 700 and 900 eligible voters were registered during the first and second phases of the exercise respectively. Hon Aidoo pointed out that he was impressed by the registration officers� performance and the fact that no incident had occurred in any of the centres, as was the case in other areas. The Western regional minister also visited some centres for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the district to wish the candidates well. The centres visited included the Shama Senior High and Supom Dunkwaw Junior High School examinations centres. The minister was accompanied by Nii Lantey Cleland, Regional Director of Education and other officials from the Regional Coordinating Council.