The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Musa Ndow
29 April 2011
The chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has threatened to terminate the appointment of any temporal staff found wanting in his/her job as registration officer.
Alhaji Mustapha L. Carayol was speaking Thursday, while addressing hundreds of would-be senior registration officers at a five-day training held at the Paradise Suites Hotel in Kololi, ahead of the 2011 Presidential Election. He pointed out that the money involved in the exercise is enormous and that there would be no room for complacency and negligence in the execution of one’s duties especially registration officers.
The IEC boss said the newly introduced voter registration system is meant to meet the realities of The Gambia’s democratisation process. “This digital system is supported by CODE Inc, an internationally recognised company and it is inline with the IEC’s drive to modernise and add value to The Gambia’s electoral process, which continues to grow from strength to strength,” he explained.
He added: “You are gathered here this morning as a prelude to this very important exercise. The CODE officials under the tutelage of Mr. Alex Gysel will take you through a comprehensive training session lasting for five days. A hands-on-training method will be followed to enable you master the overall process and equip you with the capacity to register each and every voter in the most efficient manner.”
He disclosed that the would-be senior registration officers have already had two days of intensive training at the Election House along the Bertil Harding Higway on registration-related matters, on which both the trainers and the trainees did extensive research for the achievement of optimal results.
He continued: “I must say that as a pioneer member of the Provisional Independent Electoral Commission, I am very much elated to still associate myself as chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission this time around with general registration of voters again with a great leap forward computerised mode of registration of voters as opposed to the manual registration of voters then.
As training is a planned and systematic effort to modify or develop knowledge, skills or attitude through learning experience in order to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities, I urge you all to fully participate in the training sessions as this would be a factor for improved performance which will subsequently be very instrumental in your appointment as senior registration officers.”
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