Electoral Commission & Indelible Ink: Is KNUST’s Ink Not Good Enough?

It is said the animal kingdom is full of wonderful moms that care for their offspring as they often put their children above themselves. A typical example is the Orangutan. The bond between an orangutan mother and her young is one of the strongest in nature. Orangutans are like African elephants they don’t think of themselves first, their first priority is the young ones.

Unfortunately, there are nations in our world that don’t care about the development or progress of their peoples. They’re like black widow spiders (they eat the smaller males after sex) instead of helping indigenous companies to grow, they help them to die. They import products that are locally- produced to stifle local industries , help expatriates to evade taxes and award contracts to foreign companies even when home-based companies have the wherewithal or demonstrated competence and capability.

Are we a nation that‘s averse to homemade goods but obsessed with foreign goods?

Today is Monday 19 March 2018. And I want to have this open conversation with the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana. First of all, I’m calling on the commission to wake up and unwrap itself from the denial rag. I won’t address my sister Charlotte. No I won’t. She inherited it. But couldn’t she have changed the situation to save the nation perhaps millions of dollars that had been flying out?

Conservatively, per my research, Ghana has spent over GHc 5.2billion (US$1.3 billion) on indelible ink alone in the last seven general elections held in the country since multi-party democracy began in 1992. And it doesn’t appear the commission has any plans of abating this huge spending on importing the ‘black ink’.

You know when the rot is deep you fall too deep into it, if care isn’t taken. I think the EC has been sheathed for too long. Nearly two decades, the commission has deprived one of the nation’s top universities the opportunity to market herself and be recognised as a force in her own land.

It’s been more than 17 years (2001) since the EC turned its thumb down on KNUST-- Kwame University of Science of Technology when the university presented samples of indelible ink made by its chemistry department amid the hope that the commission would give them contract during the country’s last 2004 general elections but that proved futile.

And as though that wasn’t enough, every election period had passed by like a whirlwind. Poll after poll, from 2004, 2008, 2012 to 2016, they’d all gone by and the worth of the narrative is the same as it was yesterday. It hasn’t changed the fortunes of one our own. It hasn’t favoured KNUST. The lot had always fallen on Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited (MPVL)—an indelible ink company that’s held monopoly over supply of the ‘black ink ‘in India since 1962.

Apart from suppling ink to Indian elections, MPVL has been exporting the ink to 35 countries across the world including Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Canada, Burkina Faso and Cambodia. See, MPVL didn’t start to fly or break frontiers overnight, it was given opportunity home (in India) and with time it gained experience and began to fly out. This significant first step, first chance and first display had been hijacked by the nation’s electoral body for close to 20 years. And EC is still holding on to this key opportunity like baboon with banana.

The question is: Is KNUST ink not good enough? I suppose it’s also reasonable to ask: What’s preventing EC from giving KNUST contract to supply its locally-made indelible link to the commission?

I’ll approach the questions from bottom up. KUST‘s indelible ink had been proven to be as good as the word good itself. It was understood the product had been tested at the university’s SRC elections dating back 2001. Aside, the ink was found to be far better than what EC had imported from India. If so why is the EC denying them KNUST the contract?

Obviously it’s the why that’s prompted this write-up: Why is EC importing something that’s more expensive and of less quality than what’s manufactured home? Why? Is it because someone at the top is getting his/her 10% share? And if so, doesn’t that constitute causing financial loss to the state?

Meanwhile, Ghana spends huge amount of monies importing indelible ink from India for its general elections. How much exactly I don’t know. But let’s consider or put into perspective what our nation had been paying for these supplies over the past 25 years vis a-avis what Southeast Asian nation Cambodia paid for in one of its supplies. When MPVL supplied ink to the general elections held in Cambodia in 2008 it earned Rs 12.8 million (US$ 196, 736.00).

Ghana has held five general elections since KNUST approached the EC for the black ink deal. So at least the nation had spent US$ 983,680 million dollars in the five elections. Ghana‘s population stands at 26.96 million (2014). Thus, it’s by far more populous than Cambodia whose estimated 2016 population is 15.762, 370. That also presupposes Ghana’s voting population may be bigger than Cambodia’s. I’m sure if the EC had given part of the contract to KNUST it would have saved the nation some foreign exchange. Definitely the EC wouldn’t have paid KNUST the same amount it had been given to MPVL.

What does the future hold for KNUST regarding its ‘black ink?

My expectation is that the year 2020 won’t pass them KNUST by. I’ve the conviction and I’m also hopeful the commission will change its stance and be more considerate. In the meantime, we will all be watching the EC to see whether it will change for the better regarding the indelible ink contract..

Dr. Richard Tia a senior lecturer at the chemistry department at KNUST awhile back, told the local media the frustrations and the roadblocks they’d been facing since the department came out with its indelible ink.

“Samples were sent to the EC But EC found 1000 reasons why they had to continue importing indelible ink from India (note they didn’t say someone’s 10 per cent is in danger if they don’t import).We made all those noises in the media but to no avail,” said Dr. Tia.

According to him the university would be more grateful if the EC would give them ‘a small contract’ to start with.

“A small contract in a local government or bye election will be a good avenue to try the ink. The University has no capacity to produce the ink in large quantities because it is yet to go into commercial production. Initial proposal to the EC to produce the ink fell through due to fear it can be erased or easily manipulated. For over decade KNUST has drawn the attention of EC to ink produced as a component of election materials which can save the nation foreign exchange,” he said.

And as we urge the commission to reconsider its position, I will wrap up my write-up with this question: Can the KNUST indelible ink be customized to meet buyers’ standard and to make it last for a specific time period?