[kictanet] Biometric Voter Registration

[Baiju Shah]

Listers, 

 

I was curious about the biometric voter registration kit and what all the
fuss was about. My expectation was that this will be the state of the art
stuff I have seen at exhibitions like Cartes, to my astonishment, I found
that these kits include a low end Dell laptop, cheap camera, 4-4-2 finger
print scanner, battery pack and it is not pretty to look at. Have we got
good value for money is a big question mark? Have enhanced the local IT
capability with such a project, it was procured from France.nope, it is a
missed opportunity. Are we going to get 5 -10 individuals within the country
who have the claim that understand the biometrics and the security
requirements have the know-how to maintain these systems in country or we
have still import in the expertise. We struggle to defend our ecommerce
properties, how will we do with the voter lists? The procurement has been
chaos, they are still going to purchase indelible ink, you have a biometric
register therefore there is no need to get the toxic chemicals on the
public's fingers. 

 

India did their EID project and the cost per registration (this has a higher
security and durability needs then a voter registration) was under U$2.00
including the issue of a NFC card and labour, in our case the cost per
registration, I assume 18m voters is $51 (if my maths is right) plus the
administration cost, I am hoping to get my point across, we are really not
benchmarking and maximising the use of the available resources, knowledge
and for us to become a world class destination to deliver and export ICT
products out of this country is not going to happen at this rate. We hire
consultants from various big brands who and no or little experience of the a
real life project except being able to put pretty presentation together, let
us benchmark against the best and work out a roadmap that could enable us to
deliver very good value for money.

 

Thanks.

 

Baiju Shah

Managing Partner

Telemedia Africa Ltd

Nairobi,

Kenya.

Tel. +254 701691570

Email: baiju at tele2media.com

 

 

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