After the shocking revelation that around 37 million voters registered in the electoral rolls compiled in 2007 were dubious, the federal audit authorities have now revealed that the firm that developed those rolls had been awarded the contract by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in violation of Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2004. The Audit Report 2010-11, a copy of which was exclusively available with Pakistan Today, raises serious objections on awarding the contract to develop Computerised Electoral Roll System (CERS) for the 2008 general elections.
The revelations in the report have further complicated the situation for the ECP top brass, as it states that the contracted firm was responsible for including the 37 million dubious voters in the electoral rolls. “ECP authorities floated Request for Proposal (RFP) on July 14, 2006 for development of CERS through voters’ repository. The system was required to encompass the data of all eligible Pakistani voters, approximately 72 million. The estimated project cost of Rs 538.959 million was to be financed by the USAID through International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES).
After due process, a contract valuing Rs 538.959 million for development of CERS of an estimated 53 million voters was awarded to a firm,” says the audit report. “In August 2007, the ECP identified another 27 million voters to be included in the database. The estimated cost of this additional work was Rs 237.98 million. However, the donor agency i.e. USAID regretted to finance the additional work. Therefore, ECP accessed resources of government of Pakistan for the additional work. Accordingly, a change order for additional work Phase-II (Supplementary Electoral Rolls) of Rs 237.98 million was issued to the firm on August 31, 2007,” the report adds.
The federal audit authorities point out that variation order of Rs 237.98 million (which is 44 percent of the original contract value) was issued to the firm on August 31, 2007, in violation of rule 42 (iv) of PPR 2004, which required that any repeat order should not exceed 15 percent of the original procurement, and that no bank guarantee was obtained from the firm for the additional work assigned to safeguard the advance money. “Performance guarantee was not obtained under rule 39 of PPR 2004 and clause 14.3 of the original contract, which states that performance guarantee shall be secured by means of retaining 10 percent of the component of contract price for one year after the warranty period commenced. Intellectual property rights and complete and exclusive ownership of the database as required under Article 17 and 18 of the agreement were not transferred to ECP till June, 2010,” reveals the report.
The audit report says further that the firm completed the data entry and provided the copies of final (54 million voters) and supplementary (27 million voters) printed voters’ list – containing a total of 81 million voters – “but even after a lapse of two years, neither the developed electoral management system nor the application software developed for CERS project was handed over to ECP.”
“Operationalisation of CERS at ECP Secretariat and at all provincial Election Commissions (PECs) had not taken place till the time of audit. Contrary to this, the ECP authorities issued a certificate of acceptance of deliverables to the contractor on September 9, 2008. The certificate confirmed that CERS project had been successfully designed, developed and deployed at ECP Secretariat, all PEC offices and the disaster recovery site (PEC Punjab Office) to the entire satisfaction of ECP as per agreement between ECP and the firm,” says the report. The report also noted that in fiscal year 2000-2001, ECP had paid Rs 444 million to the National Database and Registration Authority for preparation of a similar database of voters and printing of electoral rolls.
