The Electoral Commission (EC) has discontinued the procurement process for the Election Results Management System (ERMS) which was to transmit the December polls electronically.

A statement from the Head of Communications at the EC, Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, says the three shortlisted companies failed to meet the criteria set for them by the assessment panel.

“There was failure to meet the technical criteria and major deviations from the administrative criteria,” the statement said.

The statement also observed that the tenders submitted by three companies “showed the need to significantly revise the scope of the project.”

Transmission of the December polls electronically has courted the disfavor of some political parties especially the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Campaign Manager of the NPP, Peter MacManu, has raised issues relating to the transparency of the system and has urged the EC to rather transmit the results from collation centres instead of the polling stations the EC innitially proposed.

The Commission had all along canvassed the need to have the results electronically transmitted but in a surprise development, the EC has endorsed the “unanimous recommendations of the evaluation panel and has decided to discontinue the project.”

Read full statement:

CANCELLATION OF TENDER FOR ELECTION RESULTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (ERMS)

The Commission wishes to announce the decision to cancel the tender process for the procurement of the Election Results Management System (ERMS) for the 2016 elections.

As part of the procurement process which began from March 2, 2016, two vendors out of three shortlisted companies, qualified for technical demonstration and financial evaluation of their bids.

After a careful assessment of the technical demonstration and evaluation of the technical and financial proposals, the evaluation panel was not satisfied with any of the tenderers. The panel’s conclusion was influenced by the following:

1. There was observed failure to meet the technical criteria and major deviations from the administrative criteria.
2. There was also concerns about the technical ability of the tenderers to perform the project satisfactorily.
3. The tenders submitted showed the need to significantly revise the scope of the project.

For the above reasons, the Commission endorsed the unanimous recommendations of the evaluation panel and has decided to discontinue the project.

Accordingly, the Commission will augment its internal capacity to deploy a modest results collation and transmission system for election 2016.

This system has been utilised successfully in the four parliamentary by-elections conducted by the Commission since July 2015. The system would be finetuned and demonstrated to the political parties and other stakeholders involved in the elections results collation process before the December 7, 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Signed: ERIC KOFI DZAKPASU Head of Communications