Policy think tank IMANI Center for Policy and Education says the Electoral Commission is hiding behind PR works to cover up inconsistencies at the Commission.

The group in a statement accused the new management of the Commission of hiring sleek PR agencies to publish information which seeks to cover the incompetence of the Commission and rather put EC in a good light.

“Having sidelined the career public servants in its communications department, the new management of the Electoral Commission (EC) has been churning out non-stop messaging meant to convince us all that it is the most transparent organisation on Earth since Adam and Eve found fig-leaves to cover their nakedness,” IMANI said.

This follows the Electoral Commission's publication of the new voters roll on their website.

The publication is a list of voter names, ages, ID numbers as well as polling centres.

IMANI said the EC may, by this move want to prove its level of transparency.

But "far from being reassuring, such conduct reveals the EC to be "impulsive, focused on bling over substance, and given to distraction and diversionary tactics even as the real issues of accountability continue to be ignored by this highly non-transparent organisation," IMANI said.

"The more worrying thing is the diversionary and distractive nature of these types of poorly thought through efforts to hoodwink the public about the EC’s actual conduct.

"Instead of reckless data dumping masquerading as 'transparency in governance', we would like to draw the EC’s attention to its many unaddressed procurement and spending problems, where much accountability, and dare we add, transparency, shall be much better
appreciated," IMANI added.