Deputy Commissioner in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey (L) and Bossman Eric Asare (R)
The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) says none of its Biometric Verification Devices (BVDs) is missing as alleged by the Minority and a section of the public.
Deputy EC Chair in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, who made this known at a press conference yesterday, said all 75,000 BVDs that were used for the 2020 elections were fully secured and intact.
He, however, said that the commission as part of its routine servicing of voter registration kits identified that five of its laptops were missing, and reported the matter to the police to commence investigations to apprehend and prosecute the culprits.
“This is to respond to allegations by the Minority Leader alleging the theft of seven Biometric Verification Devices. These allegations are not true, no BVD has been stolen,” he said.
Minority’s Claim
The Minority in Parliament, on Tuesday, alleged that seven biometric devices belonging to the Electoral Commission have gone missing.
Leader of the group, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson said Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, confirmed this to them during a closed-door meeting in Parliament.
He told the media in Parliament that when he first learned about the alleged missing seven biometric devices, he was curious but opted not to bring it to the public’s attention because they had set a meeting with the commission.
Dr. Ato Forson, on the other hand, stated that he was unable to attend the meeting, but his deputy, Emmanuel Kofi Armah Buah, the Minority Chief Whip, and his lieutenants were able to attend.
“The Electoral Commission confirmed that seven of the biometric devices are indeed missing,” he alleged.
He accordingly urged the CID of the Ghana Police Service to “immediately issue a statement giving us the details of their investigations so far.”
“I am concerned and worried because those devices in the hands of an unknown person can compromise the future elections that Ghana will have.
“Who knows whether this is in the hands of a political party, and who knows what that political party is doing with it.
“I am disturbed and it brings to bear a number of concerns – the safety and the storage of these important devices,” Ato groaned.
According to him, this is because “if care is not taken, and these devices happen to be in the hands of a wrong person, the 2024 elections will be at risk.”
“And so I am asking and I want to ask again, where are these devices?” he quizzed.
No Compromise
The EC said the biometric voter registration kits which comprises a laptop camera and a printer are completely separate from the commissions data system, and hence incapable of manipulating elections outcome as speculated.
According to Mr. Tettey, though the kits are crucial for voter registration, they required specific activation to enable them function accordingly.
He, therefore, said the kits do not serve any purpose beyond their individual components as laptop, camera, scanner or printer.
“What this means is that they are of no value beyond what they were manufactured to be, similarly, the stolen laptops cannot be utilised for voter verification or registration, it remains just a laptop. As such they cannot be used to compromise our systems, and undermine the credibility of the upcoming elections in December. The integrity and credibility of our elections remains intact,” he added.
He emphasised that all data captured at the completion of every registration exercise goes through a process called ‘End of life.’
He, therefore, assured the public that the stolen laptops do not contain any sensitive or valuable data, hence the theft has no impact on the integrity of the December 7 elections.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah & Ernest Kofi Adu