IMANI Africa says justification given by the Electoral Commission (EC) that the current biometric system is obsolete and that a replacement, instead of refurbishment will save the country $38 million, is untrue.
The think tank said documents from both Special Budget Committee on the 2019 budget of the EC from parliament and confirmation from the Ministry of Finance indicate that the commission had since 2016 spent about $80 million on replacement and refurbishment of major equipment and software.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Bright Simmons, Vice President of the think tank said the software and equipment could not be said to be outdated and that EC peddled untruth that it had not procured new equipment since 2011 only to pave the way just to fleece the country through procurement.
The press conference was to reinforce its opposition against the EC’s proposed compilation of a new register over explanations that it would cost $56 million to procure a new biometric system while maintaining existing one would cost $74 million, thereby saving the country $38 million.
According to Mr Simmons, it would rather cost $15 million to refresh the 30 per cent of the existing system that needed refurbishment while it would cost $72 million to replace just the hardware and extra for software.
He said the total loss to the country if the EC went ahead with its plans would amount to $150 million, because the $72 million quoted by the EC was just for hardware alone and that software and services and mass registration would increase the cost.
According to Mr Simmons, EC could not begin the compilation of the proposed voter register on April 18 as announced because the commission was not ready.
For this reason, he said the Jean Mensa-led body was looking for a shortcut to pull the whole exercise off, irrespective of the danger involved.
He said integrating disparate software and hardware systems from different vendors; deploying and testing the platform, amongst other procurement process, had delayed.
In the estimation of IMANI, it would be riskier to use the new biometric system for the 2020 election because the risk of new devices was higher because of the problems that often arise with their use.
In the 2012 election during which the biometric voting devices was introduced , he said the failure recorded was over 33 per cent while in 2016 it reduced to 7.5 per cent, an indication that the system got better with time.
He also chastised the EC for being biased in the tender process for the new biometric system in favour of Thales, a company which equally had worse integrity issues than the other companies that were disqualified.
Asked if the think tank had plans of dragging the EC to court, it said that would be the last resort and that it was rather considering petitioning the Public Procurement Authority on the matter.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
