Politics

New voters’ register: IMANI working with inaccurate figures

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ledzokuku in the Greater Accra Region, Dr Okoe Boye, and member of the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) Procurement Review Committee, has revealed that policy think tank IMANI Africa is working with inaccurate figures on the new voters’ register.

He explained that the reputation risk as cited by IMANI Africa was not part of the selection criteria but was included because the company blacklisted by the World Bank made it to the list of companies being considered for the contract.

Reacting to concerns raised by IMANI EC did not do due diligence in selecting a company for the new voters’ register, Dr Boye pointed out that “after EC’s meeting with the Public Procurement Authority they were advised to set aside the work of the first committee and they decided to add the reputation risk chapter to prevent companies that are blacklisted to make it unto the list.

“The reputation risk being raised by IMANI has no scoring for the companies and checks on Thales, the company that won the bid reveals that the concerns are all allegations and suspected wrongdoing,” Dr Boye insisted.

IMANI Africa at a press conference stated that it has emerged through its investigation that the French company that won the EC’s bid to provide hardware equipment, Thales Gemalto, has been blacklisted by the World Bank for various corrupt offences,  is on record for paying bribes to former South African President Jacob Zuma and paying bribes to officials in countries such as Benin for contracts.

Speaking to IMANI’s argument that the nation will lose $150million if the Commission goes ahead to procure the system as well as compiling a new voters’ register, Dr Boye maintained that IMANI has quoted inaccurate figures especially ones before the negotiation.

“Most of the information by IMANI is incomplete, inaccurate, the $70 million being mentioned by IMANI as the tender price quotation for Thales was before the negotiation but the approved figure is $59 million.

“The tendering processes was competitive,  when I met with the President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe he cited 104 scoring for Thales which was an error in the works of the first tender review committee,” Dr Boye insisted. -primenewsghana.com

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