The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has launched an investigation into the procurement of electronic equipment used by the General Elections Commission (KPU), following the chaos in national vote counting.

“We are concerned with the current process [of ballot counting], and now our team, led by Haryono, [KPK deputy chairman for prevention] are gathering data and evaluating the tender processes for the KPU’s procurement of electronic equipment,” KPK chairman Antasary Azhar told reporters here on Tuesday.

The KPU spent Rp 170 billion (US$15.86 million) to purchase Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) software and its compatible hardware to digitally handle national vote counting.  

The ICR technology allows KPU staffers to scan the results of hand written ballots from polling stations to be translated into numbers and letters, which were later sent to the central KPU office to be processed and published on a website.

Approximately 171 million citizens registered to vote in Indonesia’s legislative elections on April 9. Early results from observers state that some 130 million people actually cast a vote.

The KPU had promised the public that the equipment would allow it to finish electronic vote counting within two weeks.

However, the KPU closed the electronic calculation center at the Borobudur Hotel on Monday, even though just 13 million votes has been counted.  

The KPU’s failure to meet its deadline has drawn public criticism. Many have said the KPU wasted  money on something worthless and have demanded a thorough investigation on the IT procurement process.

Some IT experts have expressed doubts as to the system’s accuracy, because it had not been previously tested.

“The technology was used by the National Education Ministry to collect education data in 2007-2008, but failed in this task. The ministry finally collected the data manually, but billions of rupiah had been allocated for the system,” an IT expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) Dedy Syafwan said recently. The equipment’s ability to scan, he said, had yet to be proven.

“Number seven on the paper, for instance, can be identified as number one, while number six can turn into a zero.” KPU member Sri Nuryanti said the problems lay mostly with the data synchronization process and therefore the commission would conduct a thorough evaluation of the whole system to avoid similar problems from occurring in the presidential election.

“We will start to collect data of KPU suppliers and will evaluate their credibility, which caused the vote counting to stall,” Antasari said.

He asked  the public to be prepared to see KPK officials in the KPU office. He said that given the current situation it was normal for the KPK to question the process of selection for the supplier of the equipment, as well as the commission’s planning for calculating the ballots.

“How come they [KPU members] said their human resources are not ready [to use the system] when they had already purchased them?” Antasari asked. According to KPK Deputy Chairman Haryono Umar, they had not received any information about the number of companies that participated in the procurement of the ICR system, raising suspicions that the contract was directly appointed.

“We have just started to collect information about the bidding process. However, we have received information that the procurement process is carried out by directly appointing the company[ies] without a bidding process,” he told The Jakarta Post. He said he would find information in days to come to prove whether there were irregularities during the procurement process.

No KPU members could be contacted to give comment on the KPK’s investigation as of Tuesday evening.

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