Technology in Polls & National Identification

I wrote that technology would not win the 2016 elections, but wisdom and intelligence would. That presupposed that the human intelligence behind technology makes the difference. The stories explaining how the side that won the election utilised Information Communication Technology (ICT) on December 7, 2016 are simply fascinating. I like to get my facts right before I spread information, so I have been gathering bits and pieces of information from all angles, not just from party-faithful. The communication network set up by the victorious party was so tight, so well inter-connected, sofast and accurate that by 11pm that evening, they knew they had won, were sure enough of their position to announce at 2am on December 8, 2016 that they had won the election. I missed that announcement, because I never lose sleep over vote counting. I look for the results the following morning, from the very media I don’t trust, ha! The media is a destroyer cum benefactor. So I a very detached follower of politics, but I am digressing.

Guess what. In spite of the opponents’ anger and labelling of the announcement as premature and irresponsible, the figures didn’t change much till the Commissioner announced the results endorsing the premature announcement. Yes, the results trickled in even past the required 72 hours for declaring outcome, but the decisive electoral results were secured within six hours of vote counting. I remember that in 2008 when this victorious side lost, and it played the same game, trying to restrain the then Commissioner from declaring the results, because they had not received the full complement of the votes, the latter countered that considering the bulk results that had been received, and the difference in the percentage of votes by each side, even if the complaining side won the rest of the yet to be received votes, they would never cover the gap, based upon which logic, he declared the ruling party victorious. Politicians have such selective memory!

In an age when electronic communication can be delivered across the globe in nanoseconds, with appreciable security and precision, why will a political group not utilise that channel for effective, and authentic communication. We live in fascinating times indeed. If Mr. Barow of the Gambia had anticipated Mr. Yaya Jammeh’s unsavoury old trick, he might have aligned himself with the technology-savvy team used by the elected party in Ghana.

For six hours between 5pm December 7 and 2am December 8, Ghana was located in the 21^st Century, through ICT. In 2009, an IBM group from the US was engaged by my Institution, to computerise our system. Whilst working with them to formulate a curriculum, they told me that we were 20 years behind the US in ICT. I would even take us farther back to the Eighteenth Century.  Let me substantiate that.

I have had five different biometric registrations since 2012, in this country, by agencies owned by one employer – Ghana Government. The Electoral Commission (EC) changed from manual to biometric. I was under the impression that it would release the results for the other government agencies, as done elsewhere. So imagine my surprise when the Controller and Accountant General Department showed up months later to biometrically register government employees. I asked one officer why they didn’t contact the EC for the data. I don’t remember the response.

However, just before the elections when the EC opened the voter’s register for the voter confirmation exercise, I asked a female officer why they did not release the information into a national database for utilisation by other government agencies. She told me that if any of the agencies requested, they would release the data. I countered that communities elsewhere cut cost through biometric registration, because the EC would feed other agencies with such data. But there is more.

The Driving & Licensing Authority (DVLA) also changed its system, so I did another registration in 2014 for a driver’s licence. When I had to renew my passport in 2015, I underwent a biometric registration by the Ghana Immigration Service. Sometime this year, The Social Security and National Insurance Trust announced that it had started registering contributors biometrically. We all had to undergo physical registration for the process. In all the instances, fingerprints and all the hocus-pocus of the biometric process were repeated. What a system.

My national health insurance has expired and the system has also gone biometric, so another registration awaits me. Meanwhile, the gallant policemen who are ever present on our roads are firmly stuck in the manual operation mode. Last year, when I was travelling to the Ashanti Region, I was stopped for over speeding. They asked for my license, which they were going to keep to ensure that I appeared in court. I asked them why they would send me to court for over speeding instead of giving me a ticket. They laughed. I also asked them why they needed to keep my licence, because I was on their database, they have a forensic laboratory, so tracing me should pose no problem for them. They smirked and shrugged that they knew not about any forensic lab. How strange! When the lab was opened, it was featured in primetime news on national TV. That is Ghana for you, as my students often tell me. Amidst such bizarre implementation of technology, a political party summoned a team that actually utilised technology.

I have a plea for the elected party. Let this same team complete the national identification programme started in 2008 and abandoned due to change of government. It doesn’t have invent the wheel. It simply has to pull data from all the fragmented government databases. Getting people in the public sector would be quite easy, since they are paid through the same agencies. Through the DVLA and the National Health Scheme and EC, about 70-80 % of the private sector could be captured. I am sure that the team could be innovative about capturing those who would be floating elements.

I am pleading that the IT team be used because if it were left to any local agency, it would allocate a contract to a business entity, so that the awarding agency can get a 5 or 10 % cut, as they have it in local parlance, and they wouldn’t even do a clean job. Please, New Government, move this country forward through a national identification system, which would also be a solid foundation for an authentic national intelligence system, for better social services. Using the IT team would be a frugal way to establish a costly national legacy.

Make National Identification a national priority, please!