Policy think tank IMANI Africa, a Ghanaian, has disputed the Electoral Commission’s (EC) statement regarding the discovery of 10 obsolete biometric verification devices (BVDs) at a recycling company in Madina.
The EC’s statement indicated that the devices were legally auctioned and had been acquired before the 2012 elections.
But IMANI-Africa says the EC’s statements surrounding the issue are full of “lies, half-truths, and pure fantasies.”
It has therefore demanded answers on the number of BVDs auctioned off and the disposal of the remaining devices.
IMANI-Africa referenced claims by the EC that it has a “2 BVDs per polling station” policy, which would have resulted in over 70,000 devices in stock.
It further questions the point made by the EC that it did not use any of the pre-existing devices in the 2020 mass voter registration exercise, despite video evidence suggesting otherwise.
IMANI-Africa is also asking the media to investigate further and seek answers to the questions raised, as the credibility of the electoral process in Ghana is at stake.
“The EC’s press statement was full of lies, half-truths, and pure fantasies. The EC says that only 10 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?”
“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 have 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?”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
