• Doubts secure-proof of ballot papers, delivery time
• Award of contract to foreign firms in Nigerians’ interest, says commission
THESE certainly are not the best of times for the Nigerian Security
Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) Limited called the ‘Mint’ as it has
come under some heavy burden of servicing a N4 billion facility at a
high interest rate of 22 per cent per annum for a failed anticipated N9
billion Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) job of printing
materials for this year’s election.
Also, the firm is faced with the burden of purging itself of allegation of corruption, nepotism and favouritism.
That’s not all, the Mint which is also the Federal Government’s
official currency and other security document printer has come under
severe criticism and allegation of a ‘ kill and divide ‘ attitude - a
parlance for under the table dealing in the contracting of the N4
billion loan facility from Zenith Bank Plc at the terms it did given the
apparent almost near zero risk involved as far as the Mint
establishment is concerned.
Another intriguing phenomenon thrown up in the failed INEC ballot
printing material deal is the allegation that instead of the Mint
management to either go for direct procurement of the machines it wanted
to install for the INEC printing job and some of its sundry
activities, the management headed for a third party agent it allegedly
hand picked. This move was against the norm of going through public
tender as it is required of all public institutions in line with public
procurement rule meant to achieve value for government’s scarce
resources.
In fact, close watchers of the matter including aggrieved staffers
of the Mint and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) confided in The
Guardian at the weekend that the INEC job deal which had gone sour was,
“a neatly contrived deal amongst the Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, who is also the chairman of the Mint, and
immediate past Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc, the Managing
Director of the Mint , Joseph Ugbo and the current Managing Director/CEO
of Zenith Bank Plc, Peter Amangbo all of who are brothers from Delta
State.”
But in a swift reaction, the Special Adviser to the CBN governor on
the Mint, Prof. Thomas Odozi dismissed the allegations, saying due
process was followed in both the loan and procurement of the equipment
for the Mint.
He regretted that INEC failed to award the printing job to the Mint
after every assurance and preparation had been concluded to deliver on
fake-proof materials to ensure transparency and a more credible election
and expressed concern that the European firm which INEC eventually
awarded the job did not possess the capacity to print fake-proof
materials.
He spoke further on the failed INEC job and the fraud allegation for the equipment procurement.
His words: “What INEC has put forward as the ballot paper is not
secure and it cannot be, there is no way you can differentiate it, that
is one. Two, there is nothing about the paper because it is a commercial
paper which anybody can buy off the shelf. Anybody can buy it and
reproduce.
“Three, there is no feature there for INEC to read and claim that
it is their authentic ballot paper. So there is nothing to show on the
paper that identifies with the produce issuing authority that is for
INEC to claim that it is their document such that if you go to court,
they cannot defend it. No feature for them to read that says this is
INEC’s ballot paper. So the whole thing is programmed for rigging. It’s a
bunch of total mess that they have put on in form of a ballot paper.
“It is faulty. They didn’t allow us to quote; they gave it out at
parity, the same price they gave any other person. At the end of the
day, they gave us lower, when they were doing request on quotation, we
were not even invited. But they gave out the job, because Nigerians were
shouting that you cannot take all the notes abroad, that the foreign
exchange is not there and yet they are taking millions of dollars abroad
just to print paper and there is no added value. There is no added
value at all, they are taking jobs away to foreigners not Nigerians;
they are not creating jobs in anyway.”
On the procurement allegation, Odozi said: “We have two
procurements, not just for the ballot papers, we have to get the
machines for other security documents that we print, like cheques. There
are some government documents that are called government solutions, it
is not necessarily for ballot paper and it’s not correct that it was
through a third party, because we got it directly. I can bring evidence
to show you that. Anything that I have told you I have evidence, the one
that I can’t say I don’t have evidence because it is from the inside,
because I wasn’t involved, but I have the documents in total, the award
letter, our response letter, we can give it to you, there is no problem?
The machines were not bought necessarily for the printing of ballot
papers, it is an ongoing renewal process for the mint, and government
too has a policy of buying cars after four years they are replaced. So
it is a normal procedure for the work to be done.
“Usually Mint buys materials in anticipation of what jobs they will
have, because some of these things are customised materials, they are
not on the shelves, so usually they buy it down quarterly in trying to
get these jobs. But we bought a lot of materials because nobody can
produce for you without you buying, they don’t put it on the shelf for
you to buy, you have to order to buy them. The ink we use in printing is
a specialised ink, they don’t sell it in the market, and these are
security ink we don’t get in the open market.
Justifying the process of awarding the contracts, Chief Press
Secretary to INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu assured that with the careful
measures which the commission had taken in the award of the contracts,
it would be very difficult to rig the 2015 elections, adding that all
the ballot papers and result sheets had been customised for a particular
polling units as it would be difficult for them to be used in a
different polling unit except where they were designated for.
Idowu also stated that part of the commission’s decision to award
the contract for the printing of ballot papers the way it did was to
ensure that the papers were not duplicated by politicians, noting that
the voter’s cards that would be used for the elections were also
customised with specific INEC code, noting that with the introduction of
card readers, it was only the rightful owners of the cards that would
be identified by the card readers to vote
“Honestly, I am aware of what you are talking about. The commission
did the award of these contracts in the best interest of the country.
It was done with special reference to maximise the policy of
internalisation of resources.”
“Part of the reasons we are printing the way we are doing is that the
ballot papers cannot be duplicated, the security features are there. We
are also going to use the card readers and people have already been
trained on that. INEC’s materials cannot be duplicated.
Politicians are free to print their cards but our card readers will
reject all fake voters’ cards, it is only INEC cards with codes that
would be accepted by the card readers and the codes are only known to
INEC and its producers. The card readers will confirm the cards before
any voter will be allowed to cast his vote. So with this the era of
people voting by proxy is gone. The same thing goes with the ballot
papers, because they are printed with security designs, which differ
from one state to another. So with the customised ballot papers, it
would be very impossible to move ballot papers that are meant to a
particular state to another state.
“Also result sheet are also customised for each polling unit and
cannot be used outside a particular polling that it is meant for. They
are all on currency grade and customised to those polling units. These
are some of the security measures that informed the commission’s
decision to award the contract for the ballot papers the way it did and
all these cost huge amount on the commission. I can assure you that
indigenous firms are handling a large proportion of the ballot papers.
“We should be talking of things that will for now lead to
delivering the elections rather than going to visit matters that are
routine procedures. The focus of the commission now is on delivering the
elections, how do we get the people to pick their Permanent Voters
Cards that would empower them to vote in the elections. We are also
focusing on how to mobilise our officers and materials for the purpose
of delivering a free and fair election.” Idowu stated.
Last August 28 at the launch of the new Electronic Identity Card in
Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan gave the Mint Board, which
management he also changed that day with the appointment of the current
managing director, a matching order to upgrade its infrastructure to
enable it handle most of government’s printing jobs, including the
election materials which were printed outside Nigeria at a great cost.
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