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Credible information available to the New Statesman indicates that the Electoral Commission has prepared a budget of $230 million for a possible compilation of a new biometric voters register for the 2016 general elections.

The EC is yet to tell the nation whether it will compile a new voters’ register or not, almost a month after a committee of five people held an EC-sponsored public forum on the way forward. No date was given for the panel's recommendations to be presented.

But, the EC has presented a comprehensive optional budget to the donor community for a new register.

Nana Attobrah of the Danquah Institute, a research centre knowledgeable in election matters, is convinced that the EC can quite easily undertake the exercise with not more than $120 million, at nearly half the cost projected by the Commission.

Kenya, which has a larger population of over 45 million, compiled its biometric voters' register in 2012 with $95 million. Ghana's population is estimated to be 27 million.

Observers see the ‘inflated’ EC budget of $230 million to be motivated by two considerations: for either bare-faced thievery or simply to scare off donors from the idea of funding a new register.

Already, the International Monetary Fund is absolutely clear that Government is in no position to fund the cost of a new register. Ghana's 2012 register was largely sponsored by the donor community.

But, the slow pace of the EC in making the case for a new register and the astronomical price tag are seen as a message to the donor countries from the EC not to even bother finding the money for a new register.

Nana Attobrah believes that the real cost of the exercise can help the donor partners to consider funding a new register more favourably.

"The support we get from them comes from the taxpayers in their respective countries. No nation is happy about using its taxpayers to subsidize corruption in another country," the Executive Director of DI notes.

What are required for the biometric registration exercise are scanners, digital cameras, biometric devices for fingerprints and registration personnel.

The EC bought spent tebs of millions of dollars to procure some 6,000 sets of registration equipment in 2012. Its huge budget indicates that the Commission intends to procure entirely new lots of equipment for 2016.

The issue of voters’ register remains very key in Ghana’s preparation for next year’s general election, in view of the general agreement among all the political parties and other stakeholders that the existing register that was used to declare President John Mahama winner of the 2012 presidential election, is bloated.

Some argue that it is incurably flawed, whiles others say it is curably flawed.

While the main opposition New Patriotic Party and pressure group Let My Vote Count Alliance have been leading calls for a compilation of the new register, the governing National Democratic Congress is leading the calls for cleaning and auditing of the existing register.

Interestingly, after cleaning and auditing its own newly-compiled "biometric" register of members, the NDC was faced with serious challenges that led to violence during its recent presidential and parliamentary primaries, following the deletion of many names from the registers of some constituencies.

Over three months since the NPP presented concrete evidence in a petition showing foreigners on the national voters’ register, as well as scanned pictures of apparent ‘ghost voters’, the EC is yet to response to the party’s petition.

Having requested other parties, groups and individuals to submit their positions on the register, and finally culminating in the formation of a five-member committee to lead a public forum for oral presentation of their positions, the EC has still not told the nation what it intends to do on the register.

The Let My Vote Count Alliance and others are worried about the development. “Under the circumstance the only thing we know will be said by the committee of Five (5) is to tell us time is of the essence so we settle for a auditing the register,” David Asante, convener of the pressure group, said at a recent press conference.