Voter registration: INEC set to award DDC machine contracts —Jega

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said in Abuja on Thursday that the revalidation of quotations for the procurement of the Direct Data Capture Machines to be used for voter registration had been completed.

Jega made this known at the INEC Federal Capital Territory stakeholders meeting, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

He said the process of procuring the machines was fully on course while the contracts would be signed next week.

Supervising National Commissioner of INEC in the FCT, Dr. Chris Iyimoga, represented Jega at the event.

Jega said INEC initiated a process of asking all original respondents to the commission’s Request For Quotations to revalidate their quotations, to prevent claims of misunderstanding.

“In the spirit of accountability, INEC rejected the demand for price variation demanded by manufacturers with the best quoted price for the entire procurement, which pleaded that it under-quoted on the printer requested by the commission,” he said.

He said INEC decided that all the 11 respondents would revalidate their quotations with more comprehensive RFQs.

“This process of revalidation has been completed and the commission has fully negotiated with the selected companies,” Jega said.

He said the manufacturers had physically demonstrated their equipment, using INEC software, “and we are now going through the process of approvals.”

Jega said the commission had recorded success on the software currently being field-tested nationwide.

“The tests have been very successful, recording an average registration time of between three and four minutes per registrant,” he added.

The INEC boss said the commission had developed comprehensive operational plans for both the registration of voters and elections, including day to day activities, deliverables and financial implications.

He added that INEC had commenced work with development partners to establish an electronic real time monitoring of the registration process and elections, with the possibility of integrating high quality videos.