Policy think tank, Imani Ghana insists that the Electoral Commission, headed by Jean Mensa, achieved nothing short of a wasteful enterprise after embarking on the month-long registration exercise to compile a new voters roll.
Imani Ghana which has been an avid critic of the Electoral Commission since the commission initiated plans to compile a new register, still remains unenthused about the result obtained after the compilation.
Per the content of Imani’s periodic alert titled ‘The EC is back to square one’ the policy think tank believes the EC only wasted the tax payers’ resources on an venture which had other viable and less costly alternatives.
According to Imani Ghana, the EC spent nothing less than $185 million on the new voters registration exercise which could have been equally carried out with less than $40 million.
The data reads in part, “evidence that the EC has wasted more than $185 million of the country’s money (over $70 million for new hardware, software and datacentres to Thales and others; over $60 million of near- brand new equipment discarded; and at least $65 million for goods and services) for no clear gain whatsoever is firm and solid. As we have persistently argued, at most $35 million would have been required had the EC listened to sound counsel and used the existing infrastructure.”
Imani Ghana’s Vice President, Bright Simons had earlier in a media interaction thumped EC’s argument that the country required a new voters register because the old roll was over bloated with name of foreigners, amongst others.
However, in another attempt to vindicate themselves after the exercise, Imani has suggested that the country,“reject the triumphalism of the EC, and deny it the approbation it is so desperately seeking.”
Imani Ghana also suggests a stringent national dialogue which must be aimed at fixing the identification and register cleaning issues; tackle the “Procurement Raj” that has taken hold of the EC and is hell bent; Deep and complete reconciliation with the Opposition Parties and CSOs whose calls for accountability it has shunned so far.”
Most important of all, Imani Ghana wants a “detailed independent asset audit of the Electoral Commission to account for the 60 million dollars of equipment procured between 2016 and 2019.”
