ECP all set to start fresh probe into failure of RTS

ISLAMABAD: Chaudhry Akhtar Nazir Warraich has assumed as Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on a post vacant due to superannuation of Yaqoob Fateh Babar early this year.

The new ECP secretary is a distinguished officer of Pakistan Administration Service (PAS) was Senate secretary before moving to the ECP. With this the ECP is all set to initiate probe for launching an inquiry into failure of a software responsible to transmit general election results on July 25, 2018 in the country and it paved the way for leveling of serious allegations about the conduct of the polls that resulted in installation of incumbent governments in center and provinces.

Another officer of same cadre Pervez Abbas is likely to become Senate secretary who is currently posted in the Establishment Division. Pervez earlier served as an additional secretary in the Senate Secretariat.

Well-placed sources told The News here Saturday that the changes will be in place in early next month.

In the meanwhile, sources said that Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja who was known upright bureaucrat in his career has decided to streamline the systems in the Commission for ensuring free and fair polls in the country whenever they will be held.

Interestingly the Result Transmission System (RTS) was an android based application developed and tested by the country’s database authority known as the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) ahead of the previous polls. The RTS aimed at prompt release of results, the picture of crucial Form XIV, which is the statement of vote count from the polling station to the district and central results system. The RTS allegedly crashed during the general election with the ECP and Nadra pointing finger at each other for the system’s failure.

The political parties also whipped up a storm and described the fiasco as part of an organised rigging. They demanded an impartial probe into the scandal, but no headway was made in between.

Now the ECP has taken up the matter afresh and the sources hinted that the Commission will take concrete action for the probe next month. The ECP has already decided formally to undertake through probe in the matter, the sources reminded.