Jean Mensa
The cost per voter in the just ended 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections is about GHS40.78, translating to USD7.7.
This is a reduction of almost about half of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections, which was about GHS70, thus 13 dollars, per voter.
Director for Training at the Electoral Commission, Michael Boadu, who disclosed this in Accra said the Commission made a total savings of GH¢523,409,980 or $90,243,100.
He said reduction in the cost was achieved through stringent steps taken by the Commission to ensure transparent and fair procurement practices.
Mr Boadu said substantial savings were enabled by the procurement methods employed, which saw 95 percent of procurement done by an open-competitive tendering process.
“With the exception of the printing of ballot papers, which had security implications and the production of TV and Radio adverts, all other procurement were done openly through newspapers.”
He said COVID pandemic hiked the cost of the elections with the EC procuring requisite Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) for some 240,000 staff.
Mr Boadu noted that other PPEs such as sanitizers, hand washing stations, liquid soap, tissue paper, wipes and thermometer guns, were procured for all 38,622 polling stations during the entire registration period, exhibition and Election Day activities.
He said the pandemic impacted on the production and supply of most of the offshore items, which had to be transported by air, unlike 2012 and 2016 when those items came by sea.
The Director of Training, noted that unlike 2012 and 2016 when the Commission was tax exempt, in 2020 the Commission paid full tax for all Offshore items.
Mr Boudu said, “The material procured for the replacement of voters register was for an estimated 18 million persons. In 2016, however, preparation was made for some three million persons,” he said.
“Again in 2020, the Electoral Commission used 44,067 Registration Officials over 38 days; over 71,734 Exhibition Officials for over 10 days and over 231,732 Election Officials for one day,” he said.
The Director said between 2016 and 2020 they increased the number of polling stations by 10,000, which meant that the Commission hired 146,122 more staff working on exhibition and Election Day alone and yet managed to reduce the cost per person by almost half.
GNA