EC PINK SHEET CONTRACT CATCHES FIRE

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

The Electoral Commission (EC) is creating yet another controversy following the reported award of contract for the printing of election materials (including the Pink Sheets) to a company many see as having a questionable track record.

The company in question - Aero Vote - was registered in Ghana less than a year ago but the commission, chaired by Charlotte Osei, has given it the green light to print the election materials which will cost Ghana a whopping $8.95 million.

It is even emerging that Aero Vote went bankrupt in the United Kingdom (UK) but was resurrected and incorporated in Ghana last December (11 months ago) and has spectacularly won the bid to print the ballot materials and related carbonized election results forms.

However, the EC boss, Charlotte Osei, had dismissed the report suggesting that the printing contract was awarded to a dissolved printing firm in the UK at over-bloated prices.

According to her, the contract was awarded to a Ghana-based company, after it had met all the requirements.

Materials such as the Statement of Poll for the Office of Member of Parliament and Statement of Poll for the Office of President (Pink Sheets), the Certificate to be Endorsed on Writ (Form EL1 B for parliamentary election) and the Certificate to be Endorsed on Writ (Form EL 1 B for presidential election); and the Parliamentary Elections – Results Collation Form (Form EL 23A) and the Presidential Elections-Result Collation Form (Form EL 23B) are going to be printed by the company.

Buck Press, the locally-owned company that printed the ballot materials for the 2012 general election, is reported to have put in a bid with very less quotation ($4.2) for the contract, but the EC allegedly overlooked it and selected Aero Vote - which quotation was more than two times that of Buck Press’.

It is even turning out that per the calculation, the company is charging Ghana $100 per Pink Sheet and related carbonized election results forms; and there are even astonishing claims that Aero Vote’s machines for the printing are quite obsolete.

Apart from Buck Press, the other locally-owned companies that put in bids were Acts Commercial Printing and Innolink. Sources at the EC indicate that printing of parliamentary ballot papers begins this weekend.

Under the contract, Aero Vote is supposed to print only 3,000 extra copies of the carbonized pink sheets for each of the 29,000 polling stations for both presidential and parliamentary results in order to avoid the printing of duplicated Pink Sheets as it happened in 2012.

Aero Vote was a United Kingdom-based commercial printing firm owned by a Kenyan and three Britons of Indian descent, until it went insolvent three years ago. It was essentially only five years in business - set up in 2008. It collapsed when it failed to win the ballots printing contract for Kenya’s general election in 2013.

For printing 275 carbonized Constituency Collation Sheets (Forms EL 23B) for the presidential election, Aero Vote is charging $34,210, although one of the local companies offered to do it for $15,125 - over 50% less than Aero Vote’s.

For the Pink Sheets (Form Eight), a local company offered to print 29,000 for $1,595,000 for both parliamentary and presidential polls while Aero Vote won the bid with $2,884,920 for parliamentary and $3,915,290 for the presidential.

The local company again offered to print the additional 3,000 replacement Pink Sheets for either the presidential or parliamentary poll again at a constant price of $165,000 while Aero Vote is to be paid $298,440 for the parliamentary and $405,030 for the presidential.

On the printing of Constituency Results Summary Sheets (EL 24A and EL24B), Aero Vote won the bid with a cost of $21,615 and $21,615, respectively while a local company offered $13,200 for parliamentary and the same $13,200 for the presidential.