The Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) is
outraged at the corruption exhibited by the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC)
in awarding an GHS 8.95 million contract for the printing of the Statement of
Poll and Declaration of Results Forms (Pink Sheets) and other carbonized
election forms to Aerovote, a company in the United Kingdom which was liquidated
in 2013, which was later incorporated in Ghana on December 2015.It is
baffling that, after undergoing the tender process, presumably to obtain the
best value for the hard-earned money of the Ghanaian taxpayers, the EC led by
its Chairperson, Madam Charlotte Osei, failed to do full due diligence before
the contract was awarded. Thus, the EC rejected the GHS 4,209,825.25 bid of Buck
Press, a reputable Ghanaian firm which printed the Declaration Forms (Pink
Sheets) for the 2012 elections, and rather awarded the contract at a gargantuan
cost of GHS 8,950,603.92 to a company with a record of liquidation and
bankruptcy and with barely 11 months of experience in Ghana.
LMVCA
questions the motivation and rationale of the EC in awarding such a contract to
a firm that was not able to show capacity to deliver at the committee level.
Secondly, the company refused to take the EC for an onsite inspection of where
the said printing contract will take place, whether in the country of origin of
this firm or its host country.
Furthermore, LMVCA,together with Ghanaians
and tax payers, demand urgent answers on why the contract was awarded at twice
the price quoted by a local company with a proven track record.
The LMVCA
therefore demands that the EC abrogate the contract with Aerovote with immediate
effect. We further call on the EC to do due diligence and exhibit a good sense
of judgment in awarding the contract to save the Ghanaian taxpayer the financial
burden of overpriced service from a foreign multinational whose overall
integrity and business credibility is in doubt and crisis.
With a few
weeks to Election Day, it is crucial that the EC portrays itself as capable of
conducting free and fair elections. It is therefore unacceptable that the EC
would award such a dubious contract to further erode the waning confidence of
the electorate in the EC as a credible institution. Ghanaians feel short-changed
in this award of contract to the company Aerovote and we demand an immediate
cancellation of this dubious contract.
LMVCA remains resolute in the
commitment to preserving the integrity of the electoral process. We will
therefore continue to scrutinize the processes before, during and after the
elections to consolidate our democracy.
Let My Vote Count
Don’t
Destroy Our Democracy!!!
BACKGROUND
The
Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei, has dismissed
reports that the Commission has awarded a contract worth almost US$9 million to
a liquidated company in the United Kingdom for the printing of electoral sheets,
commonly referred to as “pink sheets”.
An Accra-based private newspaper,
The Daily Statesman alleged in a publication on Thursday, November 3, 2016, that
the EC had awarded a US$8.95 million contract to the British firm, to print
electoral sheets for the December polls.
But Mrs. Osei in an interview
with the BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong in London yesterday Thursday], debunked the
claims, adding that the contract that was awarded was also financially
prudent.
She clarified that, the EC “awarded the contract of the
printing of some of the election forms to a company that has always printed it
for us and has now relocated to Ghana which made their pricing better for us.
This time, we did not have to bear the high freight charges that we would have
had to bear and also the time for shipping.” |
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