EC speaks out on cancellation of ballot printing contract

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The decision by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Asset Authority-PPDA cancelling the contract of printing ballot papers will not affect the 2021 general elections, the Electoral Commission has said.  

Speaking to Uganda Radio Network in an interview at their offices, Paul Bukenya, the EC Spokesperson said although the directive affects them by opening up a process that had already been concluded, he is confident that ballot papers will be printed in time for the elections.  

In a report signed by the Executive Director, Benson Turamye, PPDA agreed with local companies that had queried the decision by the Electoral Commission to deny them contracts to print the 2021 ballot papers. Uganda is to print more than 187million ballot papers for use in the presidential, parliamentary and local government elections in 2020/2021.  

According to Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi, local companies were eliminated from the almost Shillings 100billion deal to print ballot papers because of lack of capacity. Byabakama told URN last week that indeed companies that were complaining that they were locked out of the deal might be large in size but lack the competency to print ballot papers.  

He said that if it were left to them, they wouldn’t be considering them for this grand contract because there is no room for error in printing ballot papers. He added that there are too few presidential candidates who would be comfortable with presidential ballot papers printed in Uganda.  He said local companies don’t have the necessary capacity to have ballots with security features that can’t be adulterated.    

Companies that dragged the EC to PPDA for review include Picfare Industries, Graphic Designers and Inline Print Services among others. EC had awarded the contracts to print ballot papers to several foreign companies that include Tall Security Printers [UK], Uniprint [South Africa], United Printing and Publishing [UAE], Adare Sec Limited [UK], Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company [UAE], among others. Now PPDA wants the Electoral Commission to reopen the bidding process and allow local companies that meet the requirements to also partake in the deal. 

“We have handed the matter to our Procurement and Legal team who are going to tell us what exactly is going to be done and the amount of time that it will take. What the stakeholders need to do is to allow us to take in the PPDA decision and we will definitely get back to them on those matters including those that have been questioned. The guidance of PPDA is very clear, they asked for a revaluation,” Bukenya said.

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URN