However, investigations undertaken by The New Statesman suggest that the ruling party, which has still not come to terms with biometric verification, is shifting the responsibility of funding the process to Ghana’s ‘development partners’.
Biometric verification is the process whereby a registered voter would be required to insert his or her biometric voter’s ID into a battery-operated e-zwich mobile payment system-like machine, place a finger on it for the machine to verify the card-bearer’s true identity before a ballot paper could be issued to a voter to cast his or her ballot.
A senior source at the Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning told this paper that both the EC and the Presidency were left with very little choice after “subtle but firm” pressure was brought to bear from Ghana’s ‘development partners’ who contribute some billion dollars a year to our budget and provide anything close to half of the money for our general elections every four years.
“The countries responsible for our multi-donor budget support have made it clear to us that they want free and fair elections and see biometric verification as a necessary step towards that end,” the MOFEP source said.
“We are also saying to them to put their money where their mouth is since we don’t have the money to sponsor the extra cost of both biometric registration and verification,” the source explained.
In 2004, funding for the compilation of a new voters’ list in Ghana, using a digital camera and scanner, was provided by the development partners, as well.
Hints picked up by The New Statesman from the Accra office of the United Nations Development Programme, where a standing committee on elections, comprising Ghana’s development partners operates from, suggest that donor funding for the 2012 elections could be in the range of $60 million.
A senior source at the London headquarters of the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom also hinted to The New Statesman that the David Cameron government, through DFID, could provide as much as £18 million towards next year’s elections in Ghana.
Other commitments from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Denmark, the World Bank and the United States, among others, are also “safely in the pipeline”, the UNDP source said.
The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Asare Otchere-Darko, told the New Statesman at the weekend that he was not worried by the apparent lack of adequate funding for the 2012 electoral process.
“Government did a similar thing in 2011, which got some of us to raise the alarm only for the Supplementary Budget to fill that gap. The issue is one of timeliness. Again, we have every reason to believe that sponsorship for next year’s elections will not be left exclusively to the discretion of Government,” he noted.
To him, Ghana has “made a significant step towards a freer and fairer election.”
He continued, “The great news is that both EC and Government have endorsed biometric registration and verification as part of the processes for our future elections, beginning with 2012. Our focus now must be on identifying the source(s) of funding and securing it. It is now a matter of from where and by how the requisite funds would be found.”
The 2012 Budget presented last Wednesday by Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor, confirmed fears that Government was not ready to make funds available for the exercise.
In the 2011 supplementary budget, Dr Duffuor stated: “based on the budget submitted by the Electoral Commission, over GH¢80 million will be needed for the biometric exercise for the 2012 electoral process, of which GH¢50.8 million would be required in 2011.”
He continued: “Government has, therefore, released GH¢50.0 million to the Electoral Commission to implement activities preceding the 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.”
However, out of the arrears of GH¢30.8 million required for the completion of the biometric registration exercise, only GH¢27.4 appears to been allocated for EC in the 2012 budget.
But, Paragraph 880 of the 2012 budget confirms Government’s endorsement of the verification exercise. It reads, “The Commission will compile a Biometric Voters Register to replace the existing one, open it for exhibition, acquire electronic verification equipment, and conduct Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.”
Earlier last week, the EC Chairman, Afari Gyan, stated: “We have already put the money in the budget…but I know; I have been in the Commission long enough to know that because you put money in the budget doesn’t mean you will get it. You won’t. Even when the budget has been approved by Parliament, sometimes they write to you saying they have reduced the estimate by ten per cent.”
Already the NDC has stated its vehement opposition to the acquisition and implementation of an electronic verification system for the 2012 elections, with the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketsiah, insisting the introduction of verification for 2012 would be a recipe for chaos in 2012.
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Quelle/Source: The Statesman Online, 21.11.2011
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