By: Yusuf M Hasan
HARGESA (Somalilandsun) – Lucrative election service contracts are the sole preserve of entities with connection to election commissioners.
According to a reliable source within” the National election commission-NEC has disbursed contracts worth millions to cronies thus denying interested and qualified members of the public an opportunity for fair competition as should have been.
The lucrative contracts that are geared towards availing NEC maximum capacity in handling the 28th November council elections were to be tendered after advertisement in the election bodies website but to the contrary “inside information” reveal that cronies of the seven commissioners are the awardees.
Even if the contracts were advertised as they should have been, it would be impossible for 99% of interested citizens to access the purported website (necsomaliland.org) as every attempt results in a diversion that says ” Welcome to the home of necsomaliland.org ” “To change this page, upload your website into the public_html directory ” “Date Created: Thu May 3 13:38:45 2012” . This message has confounded me and I presume others too.
The authority to award contracts which have not undergone the public tendering process came after the seven election commissioners coalesced thus apportioned themselves a number of contracts to disburse at wish, this for reasons not yet fathomed.
Each of the seven commissioners is reported to have in-turn apportioned the self apportioned contracts to a crony (Identities Available) these acts being among the most overtly accomplished malfeasance ever perpetrated in daylights in the country.
Though not learned in the art of managing elections as the august commissioners surely are, one wonders how impartial the NEC shall be come November 28th thus a free and fair outcome of the hotly contested elections if the manner of handling the contracts is anything to use as a barometer.
This anomaly that comes to light days before official campaign kicks off on Monday 29th October as well as a joint NEC-SONSAF 2 days elections reporting workshop for journalists is cause for further worries
