Biometric register coming on – Afari-Gyan

Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has stated that his outfit is vigorously going on with the processes of ensuring that it secures a biometric registration system for the 2012 general election.

According to Dr Afari-Gyan, with the court clearance for the Commission to undertake its legitimate business, there was no let or hindrance on its part and that it was “continuing with the processes. ”

However, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the People’s National Convention (PNC) have raised red flags cautioning the EC that the path it was taking would compound the existing problems of double registration and voting and that as major stakeholders they believed the Commission must tread cautiously.

The two parties argued that although it was not their intention to interfere with the EC’s procurement process, they were duty bound to ensure that the cameras, scanners and the process to be used met standards that would not jeopardise the electoral process after the huge investment had been made in it.

Meanwhile, the General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, noted that although the party was not interested in the company which would finally be selected to undertake the process, it was incumbent on the party, as a responsible political entity, to ensure that, for instance, the mega pixels of the cameras and the capacities of the scanners were high enough to achieve better quality.

On September 27, this year, an application for an interim injunction filed against the EC was thrown out of court. It was filed by Intelligent Card Productions Systems and sought to prevent the EC from allowing other companies to engage in the biometric registration of voters for the 2012.



Source: Daily Graphic