IMANI petitions CHRAJ over EC’s disposal of election equipment
The IMANI Center for Policy and Education has petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate the Electoral Commission’s (EC) conduct in the retirement and disposal of some election-related equipment.
A statement issued by Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director at IMANI on Monday, May 6,on the matter said it is concerned by the Electoral Commission of Ghana’s handling of the nation’s scarce resources in the discharge of its duties, which conduct they believe amounts to “misappropriation”, “wastage”, and “misuse” of said resources.
“The EC’s conduct appears to us as evincing a conflict between its duties under various laws to judiciously apply the resources of this country for the good of the citizenry, on the one hand, and its tendency to take decisions favourable to various commercial vendors and transactors, on the other hand. Furthermore, we believe that the EC’s most recent conduct has been necessitated by a need to curtail transparency and accountability, and thus was motivated by a collective conflict of interest.”
The petition comes in the wake of the controversies surround the EC’s disposal and auctioning of some BVD equipment it described as obsolete.
“The Petitioners contend that the fact that some laptops, cameras, scanners, printers, and BVDs may be obsolete or outmoded within the larger BVMS portfolio does not warrant the discarding of the entire portfolio at firesale prices. Proper, financial management conduct would require careful sorting, classification, and valuation, leading to differential treatment of the items. Even if disposal was warranted, the floor price at auction, the cataloguing approach, the advertising format, the choice between auction and other methods of disposal, would all have been guided by a more honest and diligent effort at sorting and classification in ensuring that the Republic obtains the highest value for money”.
IMANI contended further that beyond the evidence from the suppliers of the legacy BVMS equipment contradicting the EC’s obsolescence claims, there is also ample evidence from Ministry of Finance, Parliamentary subcommittee, and Auditor-General records that suggests that the legacy equipment were purchased at different intervals since 2011, and therefore many of the equipment at the time of their premature retirement by the EC in 2020 and their disposal in 2023 were relatively new, in good condition, and fully serviceable.
“For example, records of the Special Budget Committee of Parliament that oversees spending by the EC show that the EC has routinely budgeted for replacements and refurbishments of portions of the legacy BVMS equipment at intervals between 2012 and 2019” IMANI noted
IMANI also raised red flags over the some sensitive data on the disposed materials which could be reassembled.
“”The Petitioners are informed that whilst Electro Recycling Ghana Limited has permits from the Environmental Protection Agency in respect of the environmental impact and footprint of its work, it did not, at the time it received parts of the legacy equipment, have any relevant certifications, recognition, or partnerships with the likes of the Data Protection Commission, the Cybersecurity Authority, or the National Information Technology Agency that could have equipped it with capacity to ensure the safe handling of devices containing sensitive personal data of millions of voters as well as, in the case of the BVDs, voting verification data. The Petitioners also believe that the aforementioned recycling company had no certifications from reputable auditing organisations attesting to its capacity to handle sensitive data. In the course of CHRAJ’s investigations, the Petitioners intend to establish that the EC’s data erasure regime prior to the transfer of the legacy equipment to the winning bidder, and thereafter, did not satisfy best practice”
