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PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE INTER-PARTY RESISTANCE AGAINST NEW VOTERS REGISTER, ADDRESSED BY COMRADE JOHNSON ASIEDU NKETIAH, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS ON 3RD MARCH, 2020 AT KAMA CONFERENCE CENTER, ACCRA

INTRODUCTION

Good Morning distinguished ladies and gentlemen from the media. We are grateful for your presence.

We have invited you here this afternoon to share with you new information concerning the

Electoral Commission's irrational decision to throw away the existing biometric voters’ register and compile an entirely new voters' register for the 2020 upcoming General Elections.

Before I proceed any further, let me refresh your memory on the reasons for our resistance against the EC’s decision to compile a new voters register. As you may be aware, the Inter-Party Resistance against the New Voters Register which is made up of six (6) Political Parties has always maintained that:

1. The current biometric voters register is credible and can be updated through limited registration to deliver free and fair outcomes in the 2020 General Elections, as has been the case in previous elections since 2012.

Indeed, the current register has been the outcome of a long and exhaustive process of consensus building among all key stakeholders including all political parties and major Civil Society Organizations in our elections architecture (including the IEA which was headed by the current EC Boss, Jean Mensa at the time) and was intentioned to serve as a permanent register which will be updated through continuous and limited registration.


2. The current Biometric Voter Management System which is made up of BVRs, BVDs, Software application, data center etc. is not obsolete but robust, and can be maintained and/or upgraded to efficiently deliver the 2020 General Elections.

3. We have also maintained that, it will constitute a misplaced priority and an absolute waste of the already constrained public purse, for the EC to throw away the current credible voters’ register and spend over GHS800 million of taxpayers monies on the procurement of a needless new system and a new register. This is more so at this time when Ghanaians are experiencing excruciating economic hardships and when government is unable to neither pay the claims of NHIS Service Providers nor commit the needed resources to safeguard the lives of Ghanaians in the face of the global threat posed by the coronavirus.

4. The time left for the 2020 general elections is woefully inadequate for the EC to procure a new system, train its staff, compile a new voters’ register, generate a provisional register, conduct an exhibition exercise, do de-duplication, and so on and so forth.

You would recall, that in the run up to the 2012 General Elections when the current biometric register was introduced, the Afari Gyan-led EC ensured that all procurement processes were concluded and necessary agreements signed before the end of 2011. By the end of February 2012, a pilot registration exercise had been completed and a number of defects identified for further correction by the vendor.

We are in March 2020 and we are yet be informed by the Jean Mensa/Bossman Asare-led EC about the final award of the contract for procurement. This time constraint coupled with the ineptitude of the Jean Mensa/Bossman Asare-led EC such as was displayed during last year’s referendum and limited voters registration exercise, should give every well-meaning Ghanaian cause for concern because if care is not taken the entire Electoral process will be thrown into confusion and utter chaos.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, these sound and well-reasoned arguments have been corroborated by over forty (40) independent Civil Society organizations including IMANI-AFRICA, CDD-GH, GII, IDEG, OccupyGhana, ASEPA, just to mention a few. Yet, the Jean Mensa-led EC remains adamant and continues to put forward baseless justifications for their entrenched stance to compile a new voters register for the 2020 general elections.

The baseless and mostly deceptive justifications that the EC has consistently canvassed include the following:



1. That, the current BVRs and BVDs are obsolete and “have reached levels where they can no longer be repaired”, hence must be discarded.

2. That, It is cheaper to procure an entirely new BVMS and compile a new voters register, than to update, maintain and/or upgrade the current system. And that, procuring a new BVMS will save the nation some $18 million.

3. That, integration of an additional authentication layer of facial recognition is impossible on the current BVMS system due to its architecture.

4. That, the current Biometric Voter Management System has a vendor-lock-in and that, the EC does not have the source code of the current system.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have known all along that the EC’s claims are false and today, we will share with you and all the good people of Ghana, authentic and incontrovertible information from the manufacturer of the current BVRs and the company which supplied the current BVDs to EC.  Simply put, we have in our possession evidence which vindicates our long-held position that the current BVMS system is fit for purpose and can be upgraded at a cost which is cheaper than replacing it with an entirely new system.