UK firm wins ballot printing contract for Sudan’s referendum
By Julius N. Uma
November 7, 2010 (JUBA) – Tall Security Print Limited, a UK-based firm has been awarded the lucrative contract to print the ballot papers to be used in south Sudan’s independence plebiscite on January 9,the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC) announced Tuesday.
The company, a subsidiary of Tall Group of Companies, is believed to have submitted the lowest bid. Only two out of the 12 companies that bided were Sudanese companies.
Since it was founded in 1991 the company has also secured contracts with the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS, Alliance & Leicester and HSBC banks, among others.
The call for bids was initially re-advertised at the request of SSRC to allow locally-based companies participate in the process raising concerns over transparency in the southern leadership and civil society activists.
The bidding process was It was officially closed on December 5, and later opened on the same day for evaluation of the applicants.
At a press conference held in Juba, the Southern Sudan capital, Beatrice Khamisa, a senior SSRB official assured the population that the referendum will still be timely held as planned.
“The Commission and its international partners are working with the company [Tall Security Print Limited] to ensure the timely delivery of the ballot papers,” Khamisa, the SSRB official in-charge of Finance and Administration said.
However she remained cagey on when the commission expects the ballot papers to be available.
On voter registration, Khamisa said a total of 2,815,964 people have registered voters according to reports received from 90% of the 2,623 referendum registration centers in south Sudan. The north’s 165 centers have registered 93,623 southerners.
The southern-based bureau has already established its data center and will begin the tabulation of voter’s registration figures as soon as the process ends on December 8.
According to Khamisa, the data center will be opened to both domestic and international accredited observers. Accredited political observers have been invited to a technical briefing on how the data center will operate.
Khamisa said, “We would like to stress that all observers and political parties who wish to observe the work of the data center will as a requirement have to attend the technical briefing on Thursday morning at the data center.”
The preliminary voter register list is expected to be published at referendum centers, on December 10 and voters will have till December 17 to submit their objections or queries to SSRB.
The SSRB official said the country’s Supreme Court is underway has begun establishing a conference for judges and judicial clerks to oversee the appeals process.
These judges, she said, will hear the appeals of registered voters who may be aggrieved by the decisions of the consideration committees.
(ST)