'Sale' of electoral equipment: IMANI petitions CHRAJ to investigate EC

The Petitioner contends that by classifying all these various legacy equipment as uniformly or entirely “obsolete”, instead of clustering them properly into sets based on their actual acquisition date, state or condition, brand or make, and by other pertinent characteristics, the auction was rigged from the outset to hand over a large number of valuable legacy equipment to lucky buyers who will be able to profit from their resale or continuous commercial utilisation to the financial detriment of the state3

The Petitioner contends that by bundling the legacy equipment with unserviceable automobiles and motorcycles, and thus failing to describe the items properly (i.e. instead of using their proper descriptive names, such as laptops, digital cameras, scanners, printers, etc.), including providing their brand information, length of use, and other such information, the EC ensured that the auction will fail to fetch the right pricing for these legacy equipment.

The Petitioner contends that the absence of effective classification, a lack of fidelity to the true provenance of different lots within the EC’s legacy BVMS portfolio, and similar problems with the approach to valuation, led to an underestimation of the original acquisition cost of these items, and of the appreciation in their lifecycle value over time due to refurbishments, which in turn led to the wrongful use of the “public auction” method rather than the “public tender” method5

The Petitioner believes that in a proper valuation exercise, having regard to the dates at which various items within the EC’s legacy BVMS portfolio were acquired and the full costs associated with their acquisition, the value of the disposed of/discarded legacy equipment would exceed the threshold at which a public tender would be mandatory6

The EC has consistently founded its conduct in the BVMS matters on the basis that the legacy equipment was obsolete because they were procured in 2011.

In short, the contents of these letters are superseded by procurement activities that should have addressed various technical concerns with whichever parts of the legacy BVMS portfolio that may have been faulty, unserviceable, or obsolete.

Beyond the evidence from the suppliers of the legacy BVMS equipment contradicting the EC’s obsolescence claims, there is also ample evidence from Ministry of Finance, Parliamentary subcommittee, and Auditor-General records that these legacy equipment were purchased at different intervals since 2011, and therefore that many of the equipment at the time of their premature retirement by the EC in 2020 and their disposal in 2023 were relatively new, in good condition, and fully serviceable.