The Chairperson of Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensah says the decision to compile a new voter register in an election year is nothing extraordinary.

Meanwhile, she said the Commission is been accused as if it is doing something out of the ordinary when the country had registered voters in 2004 and 2012, which were all election years.

To her, what the EC is embarking upon is nothing and that “the Commission is doing no wrong. It (registration) was done in 2004, it was done 2012 and we intend to do it for 2020 elections.”

The reason compelling the Commission to compile a new voter register is that the current register has issues, therefore, not credible.

 Hence the new secured system, which is costing the country some $64 million would ensure that only eligible voters are given the opportunity to exercise their franchise.

Thus the new register would incorporate facial features and figure prints, which were poorly done under the current system.

Mrs Jean said this while engaging the Steering Committee of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Friday in Accra.

She said taking new data from electorates had been necessitated by the fact that some people, especially the rural forks by the nature of their work, which is labour intensive risk losing the features of their figure prints.

According to her, it would be chaotic on election’s day to turn people away because the system could not verify their figure prints, of which manual verification will be the only remedy to resort to.   

The Commissioner lamented bitterly about lies and accusations that are been put out in the public domain that the EC is spending between $150 million and $300 million to procure kits for the registration and verification.

 Breaking down the total expenditure of the Econ the procurement, she said out of the $64, $54 million on the kits, $6 million on its data centre and $4 million for the software.

Meanwhile, $56 million could have been spent on refurbishment when it could not have taken the country into the 2020 election and beyond.

Mrs Mensah was very convinced that the system being built is so robust that it would last the Commission some ten years and beyond with regular maintenance.

“So this in the nutshell to dispel the accusations and the lies that have been put out in the public domain that the Commission is spending $300 million for the kits and procurements,” she added.

 The EC boss also debunked accusations that the Commission’s processes had not been transparent, saying “he processes had been transparent all the way. Evaluation committee has been setup independent of the Commission. The processes had been opened.”

She said they were initial advised by a consultant to engage in restricted international tender and by restricted, they identified companies that specialised in these items.

Since procuring these items is “not like buying pen or paper,” the Commission could have written to those companies but decided to open up its procurement system for the whole world to see.

She added that aside the procurement for 2020 elections, 99% of the EC’s procurements were done through an opened process.

Mrs Mensah promised the Union that the Commission would do a comparative analysis as far back from 2012 to today and present it to them.

The Secretary General of TUC, Dr Yaw Baah urged the Commissioner to ensure that her activity does not result the country into an electoral violence like Cote d’Ivoire.

The TUC invited the EC boss to respond questions and concerns of members as well as provide them with some explanations, as they have been petitioned the National Democratic Congress and another entity to intervene.

By Akutu Dede Adimer