By: Aruna Kamara (BO)
Some Residents of Bo District, who turned out to queue up at registration centres on the early morning of Saturday, 3rd September, 2022 express their total frustration over the delay and the slow process of the voter registration process in Bo district.
Speaking to A-Z Newspaper in a telephone interview in Baoma Chiefdom in Bo District, a first time registrant, Brima Demby said “it is disappointing to note that some of the staffs that the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone recruited were not at the registration centres on time.”
He added that he went as early as 7am on Saturday but I did not see the ECSL staff and when he went to a school closer to his house, he saw some staff preparing to put their gadgets in place to start the registration process, Demby said, adding that “there should have been preparation ahead of this day, and they promise us during their sensitization on radio that the process will be slow, today is the opposite.”
Janet Kawa, another registrant said that “some of the staff at the centre that she went to register was not up to the task because they asked me to spell my name which is not difficult to spell. This is making the registration process slow but hope there will be improvement.”
Solomon Hindowa from Bumpeh Chiefdom said that the collapse of the Bumpeh Bridge is disturbing the registration process in Bumpeh as we have staff from ECSL who never knew about the collapse of the bridge and had to use the Sembehun Njala Roads to access the centres in Bumpeh Chiefdom. We waited in queue for them to come and started late and that will slow the registration process.
The Regional Convener of Civil Society in the Southern Region, Mustapha Kpaka said that he is getting a lot of calls about the centres opening late and in some part of Bo district, registration centres is slow as a result of the malfunctioning of the some of the gadgets and has informed the relevant authorities to look into the concerns of the registrants.
A-Z Newspaper reliably learnt that the warehouse of the Electoral Commission in the South was very busy on Friday night putting things in place to ensure that that they staff go to the field for the registration process.
The medium also learnt that some staff of ECSL deployed in the remote areas left early Saturday morning to go to their respective centres.
The Electoral Commission Sierra Leone in Bo District is allaying the fears of the registrant that they should exercise patience as they process will be fast tracked and the eligible voters will be registered.
