The electoral agency has told MPs it will not be feasible to procure the 2017 election technology by December 8 as required by law.
Top officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission led by CEO Ezra Chiloba yesterday told the Justice and Legal Affairs committee that the deadline for acquiring the equipment is untenable.
Chiloba told the committee the secretariat should be allowed to continue with procurement matters to get ready for the polls, given that the recruitment of new commissioners will take time.
The committee earlier warned against passing the Election Laws (Amendment) Act 2016 without amendments, saying it was flawed and not in sync with the procurement laws.
However, political players from Jubilee and Cord pushed for the laws without “removing a comma or a full stop”. This meant the laws were passed without scrutiny by the House to ensure they won’t conflict with existing laws.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Act requires an integrated electronic electoral system that harmonises biometric voter registration kits, electronic voter identification kits and the result transmission system.
These laws cannot be amended as they have not been operational for at least six months after they came into effect on October 4.
With the law requiring that the technology must be delivered eight months to the August 8 election, this means the IEBC has until Thursday to complete the procurement.
All systems should be tested and verified by June 8, says the law.
During the meeting at Parliament Buildings, Chiloba reportedly told the lawmakers some provisions in the law cannot be achieved because they are untenable.
The CEO asked the committee to allow the commission the leeway to negotiate with suppliers to fast-track the procurement, especially of non-law bound equipment.
“He was categorical the IEBC should be allowed to find some middle ground with suppliers to reduce the procurement timeliness so that some of the equipment the commission requires and which does not touch on the law is delivered on time,” a member said.
The committee gave the commission the go-ahead to advertise for the supply and delivery of the technology.
“It is important that we don’t gag the commission because time is not on our side,” another member said.
The IEBC said the laws were hurriedly passed to cure a non-existent mischief.