2011 Election: INEC begs for N84billion for voter’s register, seeks change in election dates
Prof.Attahiru Jega
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, yesterday, said what the commission needed to compile a credible Voters Register was N84 billion and not N74 billion as he earlier said.
The amount, however, did not cover an additional N10 billion that the commission was seeking as hazard allowance for its staff who would conduct the election, which brought the total amount required by INEC to N84billion.
Addressing members of the Senate Committee on INEC at the National Assembly, Professor Jega, who was accompanied by all the national commissioners, warned that if the fund required for the compilation of the voters’ register was not made available by the second week of August, the task of compiling a new voter register would be very difficult.
The INEC chairman said the N74 billion would be used for the purchase of 120 Direct Capture Machines, voter education, allowances for staff and training of staff on the use of the machines.
He explained: “With regards to direct capture machine, we want the best machine which is laptop based and not hand held; which has a very good resolution camera and which has very good standard finger printing accessory and an extra power pack, in case of the battery running down. We also factored in some generating capabilities just in case everything failed and in our own country, you cannot guarantee anything. We have to take a lot of measures to see how we can improve on the situation.
Direct capturing machines
“Now if you take all these into consideration, the cost of the direct capturing machine alone – the unit cost from what we have got so far, and that is not using vendors, the unit cost is about $2000. If you calculate $2000 by 120,000 units of machine at $152 per unit, you will get about $240 million.
That alone gives you N36.8 billion just for the equipment alone. If you are going to go through the vendor which is an option we are trying to avoid, then you have to factor at least 30 percent profit margin, so that in itself raises the cost of the equipment to N55 billion.
“Then if you take the cost of the training, the cost of voter education which we have done, the logistical requirement in terms of transportation and also the allowances that had to be paid to the personnel whether they are for training purpose or for actual exercise, it comes to a lot of money. So from our own calculation, clearly we will need N74 billion. We realize that there was even an error in the calculation.
We have corrected it and made it available to the executive where we first made that.
“So we took all these things into consideration and, as I said, for purposes of planning, you have to use the highest figure. We would not say give us N55 billion and we run into hitches with the preparation with the direct suppliers.
“The best thing is to go direct to the manufacturers and that is the option we are pursuing and we are doing a lot of discussion on that. But we have to have the money just in case we cannot get the manufacturers we have to go with vendors. That is really how the cost element is. If N74 billion is allocated and in the end we can only spend N55 billion, it is saving for the government.”
Jega said the machines bought by Professor Maurice Iwu-led commission were substandard, adding that some of them had been given out to other organizations like the Nigerian Customs, Immigration and even staff of the commission as gift.
In a news item on the commission’s daily news bulletin, INEC said it would need an additional N10 billion as hazard allowance for its staff.
The bulletin stated: “Apart from the N74 billion required by the Commission to compile a fresh voters’ register and to provide for training and logistics, INEC will require another N10 billion to cover hazard and sundry allowances.”
It added that in the past, allowances for staff of the commission which are obligatory were glossed over by the commission.
In a different development, the Independent National Electoral Commission has requested the National Assembly to amend Section 10 of the Electoral Act so as to enable it gain eight more weeks to prepare for the 2011 elections.
The Chairman of the commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, made the appeal at a roundtable on “Imperatives and challenges for credible elections,” in Abuja on Tuesday.
The roundtable was organised by the Emmanuel Ukala Centre for Democracy and Electoral Process and the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
Jega, who also dismissed speculations that INEC might shift the date of the elections, was represented by a National Commissioner in INEC, Alhaji Nuhu Yakubu.
He said, “We have not asked the National Assembly to postpone the elections; every action of the commission must be based on law.
“We as a commission will be steadfast to the Constitution, which we have sworn to uphold and to existing laws guiding the activities of the commission particularly the electoral law; the May 29t handover date remains sacrosanct.
“Based on the amendments to Sections 76(2), 116(2), 132(2) and 178(2) of the Constitution elections must take place between 150 and 120 days to the end of tenure.
“Consequently, the forthcoming elections must hold between December 30 2010 and January 29 2011.
“If we take the midpoint for effective preparations and possible runoffs, it means that the elections will take place between the 8 and 15 of January 2011.”
The INEC Boss maintained that “Section 31(10) of the Electoral Act provides that notice of election must be issued 150 days prior to an election.
“That being the case, to hold the first election on 8 January 2011, we must issue the notice by August 11 2010.
“Section 10(5) of the Electoral Act provides that registration of voters upgrading and revision of the register of voters must end 120 days before an election. That means that registration of voters must end by 9 September 2010 barely two months from now.
“However section 21 of the Electoral Act makes it possible for claims, objections, verifications, corrections and final certification of voters’ register to continue until 60 days to an election, that is 9 November 2010.
“Accordingly, we have sent a communication to the National Assembly requesting modifications to several parts of the electoral law as it considers the Bill for a new Electoral Act presently before it.
“In that communication, we have requested the distinguished and honourable members of the National Assembly to consider the following areas;
(i) Section 10 [5] of the Electoral Act, to reduce the time for the registration, upgrading and revision of voters from 120 days before an election to 60 days. This gives us an additional eight weeks, bringing the total period available to compile a new register to 16 weeks.
(ii) Section 21 of the Electoral Act to reduce the time for completion of supplementary list of voters, integration into the existing register and final certification from 60 days before the election to 30 days. That gives us a total of 20 weeks to attempt to salvage the existing register.
(iii) In addition we have requested the National Assembly to amend section 11(4) of the Electoral Act which is ambiguous and creates the impression that as soon as we announce the notice of elections, registration of voters must terminate.
Jega added that if the commission’s request to the National Assembly was granted and in good time, four months would be left for it, starting from August to compile a new voters’ register for the elections, employing an electronic data capture system.
Source: Punch and Vaguard
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