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,CLEAN
UP EC, AND KICK STL OUT
The Let my Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA), Movement for
Change, Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG),
CHAMPS, and other associations, along with hundreds
of ordinary Ghanaians will walk from the Obra Spot
on Wednesday, September 16 to the Headquarters of
the Electoral Commission at Ridge to hold a
picketing line to drum home the case for a new
voters’ register.
We wrote to the Police this morning to remind them
that the import of our picketing is about ordinary
Ghanaians marching to the EC to drum home the
message that we want a new, credible voters’
register for 2016.
Ghanaians are unhappy about the corruption in the
management of the EC’s database, particularly
regarding the integrity of our electoral roll.
In 2012, a new voters’ register was compiled at
great cost, using for the first time biometric
technology. The EC awarded the contract for the
biometric voter’s registration for that year’s
elections to Superlock Technologies Limited (STL),
an Israeli company with no track record was awarded
the contract.
Today, these same Israelis behind STL control
billions of dollars worth of government contracts.
We know that STL compiled a register which allowed
multiple registrations in selected areas of the
country to remain on it.
The UNDP has just released a report questioning why
STL is still involved in our elections.
The UNDP report highlights the risks that STL poses
to the integrity of our electoral process:
“The management of biometric database has been
outsourced to STL who was expected to train and
fully hand over the system to the IT Department of
the EC before the 2012 elections. STL has not
respected this component of the contract as at this
assessment in August 2015. The implication is that
the EC will be unable to conduct biometric
registration without STL. STL has not been
transparent with the officials of the IT department
to enable the later to understand how the system
functions even though STL officials are based in the
IT Department of the EC.”
The report supports our contention that the
62-member staffed IT Department of the EC, as
currently structured and staffed, poses a serious
credibility challenge to future elections. The UNDP
report remarks:
“Having the voters’ register database outsourced,
but housed within the EC, eventual difficulties in
the management of the IT systems, undermines the
EC’s effectiveness. The EC does not have a developed
IT policy. Lack of comprehensive IT policy presents
the risk that the EC would not be able to properly
safeguard its information or maintain its IT
equipment.”
As the EC enhances the use of technology for our
elections, having a weak IT Department, with no
institutional guidelines to safeguard the integrity
of the process, and outsourcing the control of our
entire register database to a foreign company that
is not itself transparent with the EC and at the
same time controls billions of other public
procurement contracts with government which are
unrelated to its work with the EC is potentially a
major recipe for disaster. The EC contract with STL
was supposed to end in 2012, how come STL is still
controlling our voter register?
We demand explanation from the EC and STL how come
scanned photographs managed to get onto the database
of our voters’ register.
We all remember that during registration there was
nowhere that a printed photo was used, scanned,
stapled or glued. So how come the current register
is full of stapled and scanned pictures? This means
that those scanned pictures were brought in from a
different source and smuggled unto the EC’s
database.
No political party has access (or should) have
access to the EC database to fraudulently insert
such fake details to bloat the register in its
favour. The only people capable of doing that are
the people in control of the EC database are EC
itself and STL.
Our elections are not safe with STL. We want them
out! We want the entire IT Department of the EC
overhauled.
In October 2011, the Alliance for Accountable
Governance (AFAG), partner in this picketing, had a
press conference where they denounced the EC’s
decision to contract the private consortium STL/HSB/Genkey.
AFAG warned then that the biometric technology and
equipment provided by this group did not have the US
NIST (National Institute for Science and Technology)
certification. AFAG was ignored and the integrity of
our elections was compromised.
It is estimated that the 2012 voters’ register is
bloated with between 1.5 million to two million
entries. To add on to it would only leave intact a
high tolerance level for another fraud in 2016. That
is why the register must go! We do not need an
audit.
We will not relent in our efforts to ensure that the
Electoral Commission does what is right and provide
us with a register which is for Ghanaians and by
Ghanaians. Our electoral cycle can’t wait for
another Anas investigation to prove to the
Chairwoman of the EC the very rot that has been
sufficiently uncovered already.
We wish to tell all the groups and individuals who
are joining us this Wednesday that the picketing is
on as planned. Feel free to come. Be a true patriot.
Come join this noble fight to defend our motherland.
We will gather at Obra Spot from 7am and move on
peacefully from there to present our case to the EC.
We are therefore calling on well meaning Ghanaians,
Patriots, across all political parties, including
those with no political affiliation, to join us to
picket the EC. Let us make them see that we mean to
protect our democracy.
...Signed...
DAVID ASANTE
(Convener)
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