Bright Simons Revisits EC’s Voters’ Register Debacle: How Past Procurement Abuse Fuels Today’s Election Challenges

by Rashid Obodai
3 months ago

My colleague Bright Simons weighs in on the ongoing arguments about the credibility of the voters ‘register, restates IMANI ‘s case against the Electoral Commission and why all our advocacy and research about EC’s previous conduct is connected to the current challenges.

“A lot has been said about the conduct of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) regarding the accuracy of the voters’ register.

For us at IMANI, our issues from 2020 about the EC’s procurement abuse remain top of mind. Some readers may know that we have asked CHRAJ to investigate.

Here is how they connect to the current saga.

In 2020, IMANI accused the EC of having inflated a contract to buy biometric software & services from clever Lithuanian company, Neurotechnology.
Neurotechnology has developed some really cool biometric software that is being used in many countries around the World called, MegaMatcher.
The EC said it paid about $3.2m.
IMANI commissioned a study that concluded that not more than $400k should have been spent. IMANI made plenty of noise & called for audits. Nobody paid heed. The EC just ignored. As usual, the country moved on.
In 2020, Neurotechnology not only provided the software, they also offered extensive consulting & flew personnel in to make sure that all the de-duplication & generation of lists from registered voters go on smoothly.
The EC bosses had brought in some local consultants who were driving the procurement decisions. They were the ones who designed the knowledge transfer from Neurotechnology to EC. Their job included making sure that the EC will be able to keep using the tech with in-house staff & systems. IMANI accused them of conflicts of interest & peddling plain lies in the course of its probe.
From May 7th to May 27th, 2024, the final mass registration before the 2024 elections happened. Many people failed to notice that according to CODEO reports, this exercise saw the highest incidence of malfunctioning technology in a decade.
Since the 27th May, the EC has had almost 4 months to clean up the register & generate the relevant lists like the multiple registration, exception, & transfer lists etc.
In particular, the EC has had many months to use the MegaMatcher software to remove duplicate registrations (a different problem from “duplicate IDs, which are an administrative issue).
It was therefore shocking that the EC could only supply the parties with a provisional voters register only on August 19th. It is true that the EC conducted some mop up activities in August but the main register should have been completed weeks prior.
Even more shocking that after the exhibition of the register from August 20th to 27th, many thousands of duplicate entries & multiple registrations NOT ALREADY on the “multiple registrations list” are still being found.
Remember that the point of the exhibition is not to catch new multiple registrations. Between the end of the registration exercise & the start of the exhibition (i.e. from May 27th to August 20th, almost 3 months), the EC is expected to use the MegaMatcher software to eliminate duplicates & place them on the Multiple Registration list for affected individuals to show cause why their details should not be removed from the register.
Note that MegaMatcher shouldn’t take even a few hours to remove duplicate names from a register with as many as a BILLION names/entries IF IT IS BEING OPERATED PROPERLY. Ghana’s register has fewer than 20 million names.
The question is why is a system being used effectively around the world failing so badly in this case?
We believe that the EC’s opaquely procured consulting & support services are failing badly due to the initial procurement abuses that failed to set the whole project up properly. Once again, we demand a very thorough examination of the full cycle of technology procurement impacting the upcoming elections.