IMANI Africa has expressed reservations regarding the Ghana Electoral Commission’s explanation concerning the unearthing of 10 outdated biometric verification devices (BVDs) at a recycling plant.
In response to the EC’s assertion that the BVDs were antiquated and lawfully auctioned, IMANI Africa has called for additional details regarding the auction process.
They are seeking clarification on the licensing of the auctioneers, the auction methodology, and the identities of the successful bidders.
Moreover, IMANI Africa questions the wisdom behind procuring obsolete devices specifically tailored for electoral use and the involvement of a commercial recycling plant in managing potentially sensitive data.
The think tank underscores the significance of transparency in the disposal of these BVDs to maintain public confidence in the electoral system.
Key inquiries from IMANI Africa include the identities of auctioneers and successful bidders, the advertisement of the auction, and the authorization for recycling these devices in a facility lacking secure data-handling capabilities.
“The EC claims that the 10 BVDs were auctioned and that they just somehow then found their way into a recycling plant. Who were the auctioneers? Are they registered auctioneers licensed to conduct auctions by the Auctioneers Registration Board?”
“Who were the successful bidders? How was the auction advertised? Why would anyone want to buy ten used biometric devices that the EC claims have been “hard-coded” for electoral purposes, for which reason it has refused to use the thousands of devices bought in recent years?”
“Why would a commercial recycling plant be interested in just ten devices? Who authorised the recycling of the devices in a facility without adequate secure data handling capabilities?” IMANI asked.
IMANI also lunged at the EC, saying its press statement was “full of lies, half-truths, and pure fantasies.
“The EC says that only ten 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’, and not 5, 100, or 1000?” IMANI wondered.
“How have the remaining tens of thousands of devices been disposed of? Ghanaians who have been 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 asked.