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Representatives of the various political parties today stormed out of a meeting with officials of the Electoral Commission meant to assess the technology to be used for the Biometric Voters Register. Speaking to Citi News, the Member of Parliament for the Manhyia Constituency, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh who represented the NPP said all the political parties (NDC, NPP, CPP, DFP, GCPP) decided in principle to walk out of the meeting because they were unimpressed with the EC�s processes for selecting the companies to provide the technology to capture the data of qualified voters in the country. If completed in time, the data could be used in the 2012 general elections. Mathew Opoku Prempeh said the EC failed to involve the parties in the selection of the two shortlisted companies and the NPP will not give its approval to the Electoral Commission�s decision to procure vendors for the biometric registration of Ghanaians without going through due process. He alleged that some companies who wanted to bid for the project had complained of being treated unfairly by the EC. The Public Procurement Authority had also urged the EC to discontinue the process after the other vendors registered their dissatisfaction with the process, he added. The EC however ignored advice from the Public Procurement Authority and decided to go ahead to engage the unknown companies. He told Citi News that the NPP will not be part of a process that is based on illegality. The Manhyia MP said what finally broke the camel's back when the EC asked the party representatives to sign an undertaking that they were only going to be observers and could not make any comment on the evaluation process of the companies. According to him, there are only five companies certified in the world to undertake registration for biometric voting in countries of over 10 million people and the inability of the EC to provide basic answers to questions such as the certification for the companies selected to undertake the project to enable verification by the various political parties was unacceptable.