The IMANI Centre for Policy and Education has formally petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe the conduct of the Electoral Commission (EC) regarding the retirement and disposal of certain election-related equipment.

IMANI has also hinted at the possibility of referring the matter to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) for a specialised corruption risk assessment tailored to the specific capabilities of the EC.

Mr Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director at IMANI, expressed deep concern over the EC's management of the country's limited resources in executing its duties. 

He emphasised that such actions could be deemed as "misappropriation," "wastage," and "misuse" of resources, particularly at a time of fiscal constraint.

The petition underscores allegations that the EC's actions in prematurely retiring and disposing of thousands of laptops, digital cameras, printers, scanners, and fingerprint verifiers may stem from conflicting obligations under various laws. 

IMANI contends that the EC's recent conduct, purportedly motivated by conflicts of interest and potential corruption, aims to obscure inventory records and evidence of past procurement discrepancies.

Mr Cudjoe highlighted the significant value of the equipment, some costing over $3000 each, and stressed that they should have been either donated to other government agencies or transparently sold through regulated public tenders to ensure value for money.

Moreover, IMANI raised concerns about the sensitive voter information contained in the equipment, warning of potential misuse by malicious actors.

Mr Cudjoe criticised the lack of adherence to data handling and protection standards during the transfer or disposal process, arguing that neither the EC nor its commercial counterparts possessed the necessary certifications for such tasks.

In IMANI's view, "the EC’s most recent conduct has been necessitated by a need to curtail transparency and accountability, and, thus, was motivated by a collective conflict of interest and potential corruption. By its actions, it is attempting to erase inventory records and physical evidence of the blatant falsehoods it has told over the last four years regarding the purchase history of expensive electoral equipment.”

"We asserted our longstanding claim that the EC’s electoral equipment is a portfolio of multiple items, bought and refurbished at different intervals between 2011 and 2019. That portfolio does not uniformly date to 2011 or 2012 as the EC has falsely and persistently claimed, and could, thus, not be so uniformly obsolete as to warrant a firesale to mysterious bidders, who have kept the prime portions for themselves and discarded the rest to be used as scrap. Ghana cannot continue to be milked in this fashion,” the petition added.

The think thank argued: “At worst, they should have been donated to other government agencies that routinely buy similar machines at great cost to the state or transparently sold through a properly regulated public tender under the strict rules of the Public Procurement Act to ensure strict value for money,” he added.

“We do not believe that the EC and its commercial counterparties in these transactions complied with the highest standards of data handling and protection required in the transfer and/or disposal of such sensitive equipment. At any rate, none of them had the requisite certifications to be trusted with such a task,” he added.