Murtala Mohammed, the General
Secretary of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), has stated that the focus of
the Electoral Commission (EC) is not the cost involved in compiling a new
voters’ register rather the success of the 2020 general election and beyond.
“The EC is aware it will be held
responsible should the electoral processes go wrong with any election year
including the upcoming December polls and knows of such dire consequences and
will not derail the processes to jeopardise democratic dispensation,” he
noted.
Addressing the cost-concern raised by IMANI
Africa during the upcoming elections in December 2020, Mr Mohammed said the
policy think tank should not compare the equipment that the EC intended to
purchase, as the models and the specifications of such equipment differ.
He explained that the prices of the equipment may
not be the same as IMANI Africa intended to compare the prices of the new
equipment to those that Kenya and Nigeria used in their elections respectively
and IMANI Africa does not know the specification of the equipment that the
nation would purchase.
“Let’s ask
IMANI which one they should buy? They will not be able to tell us, they are
comparing the cost with that of Kenya and Nigeria but the price will differ
depending on the model and specifications of the equipment, does IMANI know the specification of the
equipment we want to purchase? They are just making conjecture and speculation,
they don’t know.
“IMANI are now talking about procurement
breaches and when asked they mention evaluation, but there have been changes in
the evaluation and the processes went successfully, what is the breach
now?”
“However, IMANI is now a lone ranger in its
persistent fight against the purchase of new equipment as the other civil
society organisations that used to support IMANI have backed down after reading
letters from the manufacturers that they cannot upgrade their obsolete equipment
hence, the need to get new ones,” Mr Mohammed fumed. -peacefmonline.com
