USA Africa Dialogue Series - THURSDAY THOT: How INEC can get away with 24,000 Machines Instead of 120,000?

 

 

Dear All:

 

The N74-84 billion budget request made by INEC is making waves, soliciting the assessment by independent minds.

 

I have an idea of how we can use one-fifth of the number of machines being demanded by INEC's Jega.  It builds on the Bangladeshi model of moving machines around.

 

 

1.  First, we do the election in April 2011.  This will give us more time to do a more thorough job.

 

2.  Second, key matter is to do the registration over a three month period - September 15, 2010 - December 15, 2011, or October 15, 2010 - January 15, 2011, depending on when the machines come in and people can be trained for them.   For good reason (see below), we will consider these three months to be 6 two-week (Fortnight) periods.

 

3.  There are (approximately) 9,000 wards in the country, which country is typically thought of as being composed of 6 geopolitical zones.  That is (on average) 1,500 wards per political zone.

 

4.  As base requirement, we have one registration center per ward, and two machines per registration center (to speed up registration and to serve as back up of each other).    That is  3,000 machines fixed per political zone and 18,000 machines fixed in those wards nationwide.

 

5.  Then, for two-week periods each, starting from the first day of registration,  we open up serially in geographical zones two additional centers per ward with 6,000 machines , and move those 6,000 machines from one geopolitical zone to another zone.

 

eg. Fortnight 1:  Zone A - 9.000 machines, Zone B-F: 3,000 machines each

     Fortnight 2:  Zone A - 3,000 machnines, Zone B - 9,000 machines, Zones C-F: 3,000 machines each

     Fortnight 3:  Zone A-B: 3,000 machines each, Zone C: 9,000 machines, Zones D-F: 3,000 machines each

     and so on....

 

This way, we have 18,000 fixed machines (two per ward country-wide) and 6,000 roving machines (two per ward, but one fixed ward and two temporary additional wards per geographical zone at its appointed Fortnight).

 

This way, we won't need more than 24,000 machines instead of 120,000, saving us N29 billion.  If we consider that each machine will require two workers, we will also not need 240,000 workers but 48,000, again saving one-fifth of that particular workforce. 

 

And there you have it.  Worth considering, methinks.  We need to reduce the number of machines and related staff and still get the work done.

 

 

 

Bolaji Aluko

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com