Biometric budget to go up as a result of ...

THE legal tussle involving the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Intelligent Card Productions Systems (ICPS) over the contract for the biometric voter register will increase the cost of the exercise by an additional GH¢20 million.

Additionally, the verification of the biometric registration, which was not part of the original project but is being demanded by some political parties, will cost the country another $20 million.

Explaining why the verification would cost that much, an official of the EC said the commission would need a gadget that would be able to store the bio data of each voter, which could be verifiable at each polling station, implying that the EC must secure at least 22,000 of those gadgets for the 22,000 polling stations nation-wide.

Initially, the EC had divided the country into five zones for the biometric exercise, but because of the legal battle which had affected the timetable of the EC, it has now decided to zone the country into four areas and increase the registration centres by an additional 1,300.

The increase in the number of centres will enable the EC to complete the registration in time and make up for the delay resulting from the court action.

On the verification, the source said the EC would have to subject the verification of the biometric voter registration to wider public discussions and if it was able to reach consensus, then it would be implemented.

In July this year, the government released GH¢50 million out of the initial budget of GH¢80 million for the biometric voter registration intended to be used for next year’s elections.

The legal tussle was started by ICPS, one of the companies that submitted proposals for the contract but was not shortlisted because, according to EC sources, the company did not have a certificate of incorporation.

Initially, ICPS went to court but reversed its decision and complained to the Public Procurement Authority. However, on September 27, this year, a second application filed by the ICPS for an interim injunction against the EC was thrown out of court.

The court, presided over by Mrs Jus­tice Bar­bara Ackah-Ayensu, also awarded GH¢5,000 costs against coun­sel for the com­plainant, Mr E.D.K. Letsa, for abus­ing the court process.

The ICPS, in its appli­ca­tion, had prayed the court to restrain the EC from award­ing the con­tract on the bio­met­ric reg­is­tra­tion pend­ing an appeal at the Appeal Court.