A tendering process to acquire foolproof technology for voter registration and weed out 'ghosts' is in jeopardy following allegations of foul play by some Electoral Commission officials,14 months to the next election.

Daily Monitor has established that the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority wrote to the EC on November 6, nullifying approved bids for the estimated $14 million (Shs26 billion) supply and installation of the Biometric Identification System to capture finger-print detail of voters.

"PPDA has resolved that the Electoral Commission should cancel the procurement process...return the financial proposals and securities to all the 15 bidders [and] re-tender using restricted bidding," Mr Cornelia Sabiiti wrote on behalf of the Authority's Executive Director, Mr Edgar Agaba.

The commission spokesman, Mr Charles Ochola, said only their chairman Badru Kiggundu or Secretary Sam Rwakoojo could speak on the development likely to disorganise the already delayed implementation of activities in 2011 election roadmap.

Eng. Kiggundu was reported to be in a series of meetings, one of them stretching into the night. Mr Rwakoojo, whom PPDA tasked to fire Mr Godfrey Wanyoto, the head of the commission's procurement and disposal unit, could not answer our repeated telephone calls. A source said Mr Wanyoto was in office yesterday.

It has emerged that some senior EC officials are jittery with PPDA for allegedly overstepping its mandate by recommending the sacking of a staff they have no authority to employ or reprimand.

Daily Monitor understands that commissioners and senior managers are mulling abandoning the biometric data project altogether amid worries sticking to it within the limited time, could throw preparations for the forthcoming ballot into disarray.

PPDA found that the evaluation committee results were manipulated to push scores of Balton (UK)/Technobrain (Tz) Ltd and Ontrack Innovations Ltd firms above the 850 threshold mark out of an ultimate 1,000 points.

Whistleblower

It is understood an official of disqualified companies, named by PPDA only as a whistleblower, spilled the beans after losing out at the prequalification stage.

For instance, and to Balton's favour, on one of the aspects evaluated (migration of voter data) it was given an extra five points taking its score to 15. Subsequently, the subtotal went up to 82 from 77.

For Ontrack Innovations Ltd, the summation scores for all items on the voter migration benchmark were allegedly inflated from 320 to 325 points, which was subsequently used as a basis for computing the firm's average score.

Mr Edgar Kasigwa, the evaluation committee secretary, was also faulted for improving the company's other rated scores from 83 to 85 and 69 to 71.

"If the alterations and the errors identified were not made, the two firms would not have scored the required average pass mark of 850 out of 1000 (85 per cent)," PPDA's report reads.