By Francis Tim Mbom
Members of the Commission in charge of the revision of electoral registers in the Limbe Subdivision have complained of lack of funds to facilitate their work.
Speaking to The Post on Wednesday, February 21, in the conference room of the Limbe DO's office, the members said they have been paying their transportation fare to and from the DO's office as well as feeding themselves from their own pockets.
The Commission is made up of representatives of the CPDM, SDF, UNDP, ANDP and UPC parties and another member, Lucy Ogem Ebot Besong, who is representing the DO.
"Truly the Commission members that I am working with have been complaining.
Some of them say they live very far from here. Some who live in Bonadikombo say they have been paying FCFA 400 everyday to and from here," Ebot Besong said.
She said the administration has urged them just to carry on, for hopefully the Government will make available some money in the future.
"We have told the administration and they say we should keep on working; maybe in future things will be fine…So we are just doing our own civil responsibility and if something comes even just to enable us pay for their taxi fare, it will be fine," Ebot said.
Talking in a bid to clarify what the Commission is currently doing, the SDF representative, Johnson Tanyih, said they were simply revising the registers and not carrying out fresh registration of voters.
Tanyih said those who registered and their names appeared in the final lists during the 2004 elections would not have to register again.
"We are simply revising or updating the registers to give an opportunity to those who attained the age of voting after the 2004 elections to be registered, as well as those who came to Limbe on transfer also after the 2004 election, and delete from the list those who have died in the past two years," Tanyih explained.
Inter-Quarter Registration
The Commission shall from Thursday, March 1, begin reaching the various villages in Limbe. This was the outcome of a meeting that the Commission held with the DO of Limbe and Head of the Commission, Peter Mbongo Itoe.
The DO said at the meeting that the electoral registers for Limbe which had been sent down to the SDO's office for computerisation would be withdrawn in the days ahead so that the Commission could cross-check the names with the names now in the list as registered in the computer.
He said the Commission members will need to work hard to go through this exercise so that they could conveniently begin the field registration of new voters in the various villages on March 1.
As the Commission moves out to the villages, the DO said the Commission would make one day each in every quarter since, he said, those who registered in 2004, would simply have to verify their names from the lists. They can only be registered afresh if they don't find their names in the list.
The DO said there was already pressure for him to hasten up with the process, for according to the law, whenever the Head of State will convene the electorate, registration will automatically stop.
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