CONTRADICTION OF THE STATEMENT REGARDING HUGE EXPENDITURE ON PREPARATION OF COMPUTERISED ELECTORAL ROLLS, 2007.
Islamabad, the 28th September, 2007.- Spokesman of the Election Commission of Pakistan, Islamabad has clarified the position as alleged in a statement regarding preparation of Computerised Electoral Rolls, 2007 published in a Section of Press, dated the 25th September, 2007. In this regard, it was clarified that National Tender was floated in the newspapers and a very comprehensive Request for Proposal was prepared for inviting proposals from reputed IT Firms for this critical task through open competition. A professional and transparent proposal evaluation criteria was evolved and followed in letter and spirit for the award of contract. Two-stage evaluation – technical evaluation completed prior to opening of financial proposals of the technically qualified Firms – was done by subject matter and IT experts and a Committee comprising representatives of the ECP , UNDP, Pakistan Computer Bureau, Ministry of IT, USAID and International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES) supervised and scrutinized the whole process of bid opening as well as evaluation of technical and financial proposals submitted by various Firms and thereafter the lowest bidder M/s Kalsoft JV was awarded the task of preparation of computerization and printing of Electoral Rolls.
2- So far the alleged shortfall in the enrolment of voters is concerned it is added that despite vide publicity campaign by the Election Commission, there was lack of interest of the persons attaining the age of 18 years and above as well as non-availability of CNICs/Old NICs.
3. However, in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, it was decided that after comparing both the electoral rolls i.e. the electoral rolls, 2002 and the draft Computerized Electoral Rolls, 2006-07, the names which are not appearing in the draft Electoral Rolls and exist in the Electoral Rolls, 2002, may be incorporated and the additional lists may be prepared by the verifying officials, under the supervision of the Registration Officers i.e. Assistant Election Commissioners and Deputy Election Commissioners.
4. So all the Registration Officers in the Provinces, including Federal Capital, Islamabad and FATAs, were directed to identify the names of all those persons (male/female), who stand enrolled as voters in the existing electoral rolls, which were prepared in 2002 and updated in the year 2004 but their names do not appear in the draft Computerized Electoral Rolls, 2006-07, so that the same are merged with the final computerized electoral rolls to be used for the conduct of forthcoming general elections in the country.
5- The Spokesman has explained that the Correspondent has never contacted him in this behalf.
6- The Spokesman further added that the statement is biased, fabricated, misleading, unfair and not based on facts.
