Federal Territory Election Commission chief Shafie Taib clarified today that the decision to appoint government R&D arm Mimos to verify and ‘clean up’ its problematic electoral roll, is still under consideration.

“On whether to accept or reject the proposal, we have yet to make an official decision. It is to be decided by the EC headquarters in their meeting.

“On Mimos, there is no decision yet. It is still being looked at by the EC,” he told Malaysiakini today.

Shafie was responding to claims by PKR that the EC had rejected the proposal to appoint the technology firm to verify the problematic electoral roll.

Earlier today, PKR claimed that the EC has rejected the recommendation from the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) for electoral reforms to appoint Mimos to clean up the electoral roll.

NONE“We were informed at our latest meeting with the commission. They decided that Mimos will not be tasked to verify the electoral roll,” PKR vice president Nurul Izzah (right) told reporters after the meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

The parliamentarian related that she was informed of this by Shafie during the morning meeting.

She said Shafie told her that the matter was based on the minutes of a meeting, that he attended at EC headquarters in Putrajaya recently.

Shafie, however, attributed the announcement by Nurul Izzah as due to a misunderstanding at the meeting.

Shafie said he needed to clarify the matter so as not to be accused of jumping the gun before the matter is decided upon by the EC headquarters.

Asked about Nurul Izzah’s mention of minutes of EC headquarters meeting, Shafie said that he was rifling through some notes on other issues during the meeting which she may have mistaken as the EC minutes.

He said that he was unaware of the misunderstanding by the Lembah Pantai MP at the time and stressed that as a public official he cannot disclose government documents, like minutes of meetings.

Issue based on minutes of EC meeting
                
NONEThe EC officer, however, could not confirm what reasons if any were given by the commission in rejecting Mimos, and if any other company would be given the task of cleaning up the electoral roll.

Nurul Izzah expressed concern over the integrity of the electoral roll and EC’s central database system linked to the National Registration Department (NRD).

Allegations and proven instances are a dime a dozen on “weaknesses and out of date information” highly apparent in the system.

“It is worrisome. The PSC’s recommendation for Mimos to verify the electoral roll has been rejected by the EC,” she said.

Among its interim recommendations, the PSC had asked the EC to appoint Mimos, with its expertise in IT and database technologies, to verify the electoral roll in the commission’s database as well as its linkages to the NRD and report back on existing problems and solutions needed.

The matter came about after numerous instances of verified errors in the electoral roll such as two voters with the same Identity Card numbers, deceased voters still listed as active, and registration of voters who are not Malaysian citizens.

Also present at the meeting was fellow party veep Tian Chua, Federal Territory PKR chief Idris Ahmad and central committee member Dr Tan Kee Kwong.