EC’s Choice To Compile New Register Is Blacklisted Rogue Company

It is emerging that the company that the Electoral Commission has decided to hire to provide the biometric equipment for the compilation of the controversial new voters’ register may be a shady firm with a rogue track record.

Thales DIS France SA is a mutation from Gemalto, a company which got blacklisted in Ghana after they had fouled up badly and failed to deliver on a Government of Ghana (GoG) contract awarded it in 2016.

Gemalto, now Thales, had been awarded the contract to install Immigration check systems at the Kotoka International Airport but had failed woefully to deliver on the contract.

Their epic failure led to GoG apparently retrieving the contract from them and awarding it to a different company. Even so, the disgraceful aftermath had left Gemaltos’ reputation in Ghana in tatters with even other companies that used to deal with them allegedly distancing themselves from them.

Traditionally, the practice by GoG is that companies which fail to deliver on contracts that are awarded them or act shadily in respect of such contracts are automatically blacklisted. Gemalto, being aware of this, allegedly then decided to shed skin like a snake and burry its past.

Just last year July, the company allegedly changed its name to Thales DIS France SA. Thales is the one which the EC has settled on to undertake the US$72million contract to provide the biometric infrastructure for the proposed new register.

Background checks on the two companies has thrown up the confusing mixed bag that Gemalto is a unit in Thales.

The Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voters’ Register have hinted that they have details about the shady transmogrification of Gemalto into Thales which apparently changed its name just to land the EC contract. After a supposed tender that has ended in controversy, the EC settled on Thales for the contract.

The Inter-Party Resistance has hinted that it mayu soon be releasing the dirty files on how this same company got blacklisted after messing up a contract pertaining to the KIA.

Today at a press conference, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, accused Chairperson of the EC, Mrs. Jean Mensah of arching backwards to hire the company which has already been blacklisted by GoG because of unfathomable interest.

More anon…