We are not using old registration kits at centres – EC insists

The Electoral Commission (EC) has described as preposterous and outrageous claims by some people that the Commission is still using old registration kits in the ongoing Voters Registration Exercise.

“To still clear the air, the Commission acquired from Thales DIS, 8,000 Biometric Voter Registration Kits and another 530 Biometric Voter Registration Kits as spares.

“As we sit here now, over 95 percent of the kits are being used for the registration at our registration centres, our district offices and by the mobile teams. The rest are being kept as backups in the various districts,” Dr Bossman Eric Asare, Deputy Chair in charge of Corporate Service at the EC told journalists at the fourth edition of the “Let the Citizen Know”, in Accra.

He said since scrutinizing the work of the Commission is important, the Commission urges all Ghanaians including Civil Society Organisations to do so with a high level of professionalism and candour.

Dr Asare said, “Any questions about the Electoral Commission using old BVR Kits in this registration exercise is overly pedestrian, and it clearly shows that those making the allegations either do not know the difference between the old and the new kits or are simply being mischievous”.

“One distinguishing feature of the BVR kits is that the scanners are either Greenbits or Kojak. Computers are of different brands and the batteries are completely different. The current laptops are Dell whilst the former BVRs were HP”.

The Deputy Commissioner challenged anyone who has evidence it is using any of its old kits in this registration to show the Commission those Centres since they claimed they were about 40 percent.

“We are presently registering in almost 7000 centers and the kits are the newly procured ones,” he emphasised.

Dr Asare said with the current performance of officials and the kits, it was incontrovertible that the Commission will be able to register all qualified Ghanaians within the stipulated time.

He said despite the technical challenges experienced last Sunday, it registered 711,528 qualified voters and on Monday 783,119 qualified voters were registered, adding that the kits have not disappointed us, as demonstrated by the figures registered lately and the consistencies in their performances.