Nadra may shelve ECP project to escape undue criticism

ISLAMABAD: National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) is seriously considering shelving Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) project of maintaining computerised voters’ lists after repeated allegations by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of maneuvering the said lists, though Nadra can make not a single change without the formal approval of the ECP.
Well-placed sources disclosed that though ECP is a constitutional institution and could order Nadra to obey it, Nadra Board might discuss sending a request to the ECP to terminate its contract of maintaining voters’ lists so that the authority might try to win more international projects which are slipping away from its hands because of allegations being leveled against it by PTI. The sources said that Nadra’s $84 million Sri Lanka project had almost slipped away.
If political parties continued defaming Nadra, in next a few years the authority would face financial crunch because no international organisation or foreign country would trust it thus the revenue would get a nose dive, the sources maintained.
A Nadra spokesperson declined to comment on this particular issue. However, he confirmed that Nadra Board or Interior Minister could review any project or decision for the betterment of the organisation and that directions given by them were binding on the organisation.
While sources in Nadra say that Nadra got rid of multiple double registrations as fingerprint matching removed chances of fake CNICs and many voters from Imran Khan’s NA-56 used to cast their votes two times because they were registered as voters in NA-56 Rawalpindi and NA-50 Murree at the same time and because of Nadra, tens of thousands of Murree voters registered in Imran Khan’s constituency were removed.
The sources maintained that it was only because of Nadra that over 50 percent fake/bogus/unverified votes in 2008 voters’ lists were cleansed in 2013. “Nadra prepared the world’s biggest SMS based vote verification system. It beat the world record for over 52 million verifications. The people need not go about to confirm their votes. Earlier, they would have to go where lists were displayed to check it manually. Without Nadra this convenience will not be available”, the sources added.