A delegation of the coalition, led by Peoples National Convention (PNC) National Chairman, Bernard Mornah, met Kufuor at his residence in Accra.
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Coalition against new voters' register petitions Kufuor
The Inter-Party Resistance Against the new voters' register has petitioned former President John Agyekum Kufuor to register their displeasure against the Electoral Commission's decision to compile a new voters' register.
Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voter Register with John Agyekum Kufuor
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He said during the last local government elections there was a 0.6 failure rate with the use of the existing biometric equipment and questioned why based on such a high-efficiency rate, the Commission would wish to replace equipment and also do away with 17 million names in the voter database.
He added that compiling new voters register in an election year will come at a huge cost to political parties in terms of time and resources.
The coalition is also calling for a live telecast of the meeting to ensure transparency and has also charged the EC to organise a public debate forum for all political parties.
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READ MORE: We'll fight with our last 'blood' to resist the compilation of new voters' register - Otokunor
Meanwhile, the EC believes the integrity of the 2020 polls could be undermined if a new roll and a new Biometric Voter Management System are not put in place.
In a statement, the EC said: "The current kits and solutions are obsolete: They are End-Of-Life (EOL) and can no longer be supported by their Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). The immediate past vendors of the solution proposed that the Commission replace all the equipment and also upgrade the Data Centre. This was rehashed by the Consultants we engaged to audit our systems
"It is important to emphasise that whether we compile a new voters’ register or not, there is the need to acquire new equipment to replace the obsolete kits acquired in 2011. It is therefore important to delink the procurement of equipment and kits from the registration exercise. We state again that whether or not the EC compiles a new register or conducts a limited registration exercise, we will procure new kits to replace the obsolete ones. Additionally, we will acquire a new data centre with robust state-of-the-art services and equipment at the cost of 6 Million Dollars instead of upgrading the existing one at the cost of 15 million United States Dollars as proposed by the previous vendors.
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"Again, we are replacing the existing software with a new one to enable us own and control our systems, unlike the previous situation where the solution was owned, controlled and managed by the vendors.
"There is no doubt that the voter register is bloated. The bloat is because we have not developed an effective way of cleaning the register. The bloated register increases the cost of our elections. The Commission always procures election materials based on the number of registered voters. This causes a lot of waste as the number of registered voters exceeds the actual voters.
"Considering the above challenges, the Commission has come to the conclusion that it will be cheaper and prudent to acquire new BVRs and BVDs which are robust and user-friendly than to upgrade old and obsolete ones. Again, the Commission will go ahead with the preparation of a new biometric voters’ register based on the reasons provided earlier."
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