KPU getting desperate about ballot box debacle

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) said on Thursday it would carry out daily monitoring of the ballot box production process beginning Saturday.

The plan comes on the heels of serious concerns about a possible delay of the ballot boxes, which must be completed by the end of January. The commission has ordered 2.19 million boxes.

"We will send a team to check up on the factories of PT Survindo Indah Prestasi and PT Tjakrindo Mas, to make sure they are working efficiently and on schedule," KPU deputy secretary general Sussongko Suhardjo said.

Each monitoring team will be comprised of two officials, and each pair will be sent to the 13 factories being used by the firms.

Sussongko said the teams would stay at the factories with one person monitoring the production and the other verifying the delivery of the boxes.

The team will be coordinated by KPU senior officials R.M. Purba and Soeharso.

So far, the monitoring of ballot box production and delivery had been conducted sporadically, Sussongko said.

In early November, KPU controversially decided to award Survindo the winning bid to produce the boxes with the total score of 92, well above the minimum score of 80 based on the KPU's screening criteria point system. Nevertheless, there remained public doubt about the firm's capability.

In late December, when it became clear that Survindo would never get the job done on time, KPU fueled controversy by contracting Tjakrindo to produce 40 percent of the boxes, even though it ranked second in the tender with a score of 66.

As of Dec. 31, Survindo had only managed to produce 30,000 of the 600,000 that it should have had finished by that time.

KPU will reevaluate the performance of both firms on Jan. 15 and decide whether or not to change the proportion required by the two companies.

According to Sussongko, Survindo is obliged to have 925,857 boxes completed by Jan. 14.

Survindo executive director Sihol Manullang earlier had admitted that at the end of December, his company had produced just 40,000 boxes, despite a stated total production capacity of 40,000 boxes per day.

Using simple calculations, Survindo would only be able to reach the 600,000 mark by Jan. 14, well below its obligation of 925,857.

Tjakrindo has a total production of 60,000 boxes a day from two factories with each factory producing a stated maximum capacity of 30,000 per day.

Mochtar B.U. of Tjakrindo said to date, his firm had made 30,000 boxes in total after resuming production on Jan. 5 at one factory, while the other will not resume until Jan. 10.

He said the company would be able to meet the target of 500,000 boxes by Jan. 10. However, if the capacity numbers are correct, Tjakrindo would only be able to have 350,000 done by Jan. 14, far below KPU's expectation of 500,000 boxes.