IMANI Africa has issued a statement expressing skepticism about the Electoral Commission's handling of 10 obsolete biometric verification devices (BVDs) discovered at a recycling plant.
Following the EC's assertion that the BVDs were outdated and legally auctioned off, IMANI Africa raised questions regarding the auction process. They sought clarification on various aspects, including the involvement of auctioneers, their licensing status, and the transparency of the auction.
Furthermore, IMANI Africa questioned the identities of the successful bidders and the rationale behind acquiring obsolete devices designed for electoral purposes. They also expressed concerns about a commercial recycling plant handling such devices, given the potential sensitivity of the data they may contain.
In their statement, IMANI Africa emphasized the need for the Electoral Commission to provide transparent and comprehensive details about the auction and disposal process. They highlighted the importance of upholding public trust in the electoral system and called for clarity on the circumstances surrounding the BVDs' disposal.
However, IMANI Africa has called the EC’s statement “lies, half-truths, and pure fantasies.”
IMANI Africa expressed concerns over the EC’s leadership and the transparency of their actions, stating that there seems to be a pattern of misconduct and misinformation.
“The EC’s press statement was full of lies, half-truths, and pure fantasies. The EC says that only 10 biometric verification devices (BVDs) were “auctioned”. And that they “found their way” into a recycling plant. The obvious questions that the media ought to ask are a) Before the EC jettisoned the existing system, it had told Parliament that it had implemented a “2 BVDs per polling station” policy and therefore had more than 70,000 BVDs in stock.”
“Then in 2020, it proceeded to buy a brand-new set of biometric voter registration (BVR) kits with corresponding BVD kits and swore (despite video evidence collected by Bright Simons) that they never used any of the pre-existing devices in the 2020 mass voter registration exercise. Why then did they auction only 10 out of the over 70,000 devices? Why “10, not 5, 100, or 1000?”
“How have the remaining tens of thousands of devices been disposed of? Ghanaians paying attention to the EC’s strange conduct under the current leadership know that the EC admitted to having lost some BVRs recently, but when pushed it insisted that they were only five in number. There is a clear pattern here. What exactly is going on?”
The think tank urged the media to investigate further and seek answers to the questions raised, as Ghana's electoral process's credibility is at stake.
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