“The SLPP is disturbed by the slow pace of the registration. Field reports indicate an average time of 25 minute of register a person. Since registration started March 20, 2017, we have not received report from any centre able to meet the daily minimum registration of 80” as quoted in the press statement.
Delivering the press statement, Chairman of the National Registration Committee of the SLPP, Jacob Jusu Saffa said the Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party happened to be part of the registration process with agents in all registration centres, in the country. Mr. Saffa stretched out on some of the issues which he believed have largely impeded on the registration process.
As he vividly stated that the SLPP proposed that information requested at this stage should be restricted to those required only for voter registration. By so doing the mentioned that all the necessary information could be made available in the duration the registered voters will collect their voter identity cards.
Jacob Saffa continues that the SLPP is aware of a budgetary allocation of over two hundred billion Leones in the 2017 budget to NEC, but not more than ten billion Leones had been disbursed to the Commission. This according to him happened to be the primary reason for the inadequate voters’ registration sensitization, lack of back up, VI 820 kits machines among others.
Mr. Saffa also reiterated the boundary delimitation as one that has adverse effects on the electoral process. Regional representatives of the SLPP issued testimonies to confirm the issue of poor registration process in their different centres.
“…the party continues to urge the government to postpone the implementation of its de-amalgamation plan which will surely warrant revisiting the boundary delimitation and the planned on the revised national constitution and instead direct funding to the election process” Saffa stated.
The SLPP believed the only way to remedy the situation is to separate the voter registration from the civil registration. This could be done by omitting questions that have to deal with civil registration, he ascertained.
