Our Current Voter Management System Is Beyond Redemption – Kabila

Acting General Secretary of the opposition Convention People’s Party (CPP), James Kobina Bomfeh says the need for the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile new voters’ register is based on the fact that the current voter management system software has outlived its lifespan.

According to him, the center cannot hold as those who brought the 2012 biometric machines are not in the position to improve the software anymore; thus necessitated plans by the Electoral Commission to look for another vendor to create a new voter management system for the upcoming elections in December 2020.

He was speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show.

“Anybody is knowledgeable in technology knows that every system is done to respond to certain conditions, queries or issues. Software development respond to a particular issue and so as you develop a voter management system, going forward it will demands an update or an enhancement and if the software developers are no longer operational, then there is no way you can improve on the current system…we have something we call, ‘end of life and end of support,” he stated.

Kabila, as he is affectionately called, threw down the gauntlet to anyone to come up with a contrary view of the stance of the Electoral Commission (EC).
 
“…if anybody has a contrary view of the stance of the EC, they should come out with it and prove the Commission wrong and say categorically that the challenges the EC has mentioned are fabricated; that person should say so”, he dared.

Stating his frustration over the repeated reminder of who is in charge of the system, the CPP Acting General Secretary again said that the voter management system is not under the management of the Electoral Commission but a private company as the EC has no technical knowledge to operate the system.

“This voter management system, it is not the EC that is managing it and we are tired of repeating this fact. EC has no technical know-how to manage the voter management system and the company that was employed to manage the system [vendor] is STL and the contract EC has with them has expired and so we don’t even have the technically competent people to man the voter management system. So, what are they saying? We need a new vendor”, he explained.