Kandaharis say registration centers under-staffed

KANDAHAR CITY (Pajhwok): The residents of southern Kandahar province have complained about a shortage of human resources at voter registration centers to deal with people registering as voters.

The residents say workforce should be increased at registration centers to facilitate people as voter without wasting time.

The number of people registering to vote has increased after Kandahar police chief Gen. Abdul Razeq and other officials registered themselves and called on other people come to the registration offices and register themselves.

Razeq asked civilians and military officials not to accept references from people and only focus on registration of people.

Najibullah, a resident of 2^nd police district, told Pajhwok Afghan News a large number of people had started coming to registration centers after Gen. Razeq directed people to register as voters.

He said the problem was that people’s turnout to register had increased and a few officials could not handle them.

Hashim Durrani, Independent Election Commission (IEC) head for Kandahar, told Pajhwok Afghan News that registration of a person took three minutes and confirmed rush on registration offices.

He said in current circumstances the commission could not increase staff at registration centers.

Durrani, however, said people could go to registration centres where there was no rush. He said police had been contacted regarding the issue and they would resolve the problem. He said so far 27,000 people had registered as voters which included 2,000 women.

ma