EC’s procurement of new BVMS risk legal suits as accusations of manipulation soar

There is yet another controversy brewing over the processes leading to the procurement of biometric voter registration and verification system and the voter management system.

Ghana’s elections governing body, the Electoral Commission is not new to controversy relating to procurement. Procurement violations formed the basis for petitions that eventually led to the removal from office of the last head of the institution, Mrs Charlotte Osei.

There are suspicions that the EC is being mired in yet another controversy as companies participating in the bidding process for the selection of suppliers of the equipment needed for the compilation of a new voter’s register and later voting, complain of strange twists and turns and downright manipulations of the process.

Sources say some of the companies are contemplating legal action if the clear breaches and patently flawed processes are carried through. This poses potential risks for an electoral commission swimming time and public opinion to compile a register for the elections.

The first concern raised by some of the participating companies is the arbitrary and unexplained truncation of the procurement process the EC initiated in April 2019.

Following the Commission’s notices issued on April 16 last year, companies sent in their proposals expressing interest in supplying the biometric voter registration system and the voter management system that is both the hardware (equipment) and the software.

After shortlisting the companies on June 14, the Commission cancelled the process a week later, initiating an entirely new process, this time decoupling the hardware from the software and requesting two separate bidders for either of them. The participating vendors found this arrangement troubling because they contend leaving both hard and software in the hands of one vendor would be more efficient and enhance accountability.

Its experts believe this is not only inefficient but will incur cost as another company has to be contracted to do the integration of the software and hardware. The decision to decouple the two was on the recommendation of the EC’s experts believed to benefit from the decision.

After months of delay caused by the sudden cancellation of the initial process, a number of companies responded to the EC’s invitation for expression of interest and submitted their proposals on November 22, 2019.

In the course of this, sources say the the EC’s requirement of average annual revenue for eligible bidders was suddenly lowered from US$ 90 million to US$ 50 million. In the first pre-qualification tender the average revenue was US$ 150 million.

The reduction in the average annual revenue from $90 million was reportedly done after the submission date had elapsed and a new date set, allowing new bidders to submit expressions of interest.

Five companies - Smartmatic, Thales, Idemia, MIRU, and Buckpress - submitted tenders with four of them qualifying to the product demonstration stage. Idemia did not make it to this stage which was held on 10th December 2019.

After the demonstrations were done, some of the companies claim attempts were made to manipulate the process with unfounded claims being made against some of them.

A day before Christmas, members of the technical team were summoned to provide justification for their scores of the various proposals of the four companies. They had until 5pm Christmas day to do this and were required to attend a 7:30 am meeting on Boxing Day, December 26, 2019 to speak to their submitted justification.

Given that this was a holiday period, some members of the review panel were unable attend and in their absence, the scores of their technical review were reviewed downwards significantly, altering the original standings of all four companies after the first review.

Having concluded the technical evaluation, they proceeded to open the financial bids indicating that while Buckpress and Smartmatic quoted $77,692,404.33 and $69,937,492.62 (tax inclusive) respectively, Thales and MIRU submitted $70,312,073.00 and $79,489,045.00 respectively without tax.

Sources say three days after the financial bids were opened, specifically on January 6, 2020, another financial tender evaluation team was assembled. The chairman of the earlier panel was absent at this financial tender evaluation meeting, even though he was physically present at the offices of the EC.

Just as what happened with the technical evaluation where the scores of the evaluators reportedly altered, some of the companies insist that at this financial tender evaluation meeting, the costs proposed by the companies were significantly altered. While some of the prices were increased, others were lowered without recourse to the companies.

At this point, all the previous technical and financial evaluation reports were cancelled a new evaluation panel was formed and bidders called to demonstrate their products, a process as subjective and flawed because the financial bids were already known at the time that the technical bids were being re-evaluated.

Procedurally, technical evaluation is done before financial bids are opened, but process adopted by the EC seems quite murky.