Recent report has revealed that the company that printed the 2023 elections voter’s ID cards is a Romanian registered company and not Greek as presumed earlier.

The ID cards received an inconceivable amount of criticism when the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) started issuing them late last week. Most criticise both the texture and bio data of the card with some taking to social media to mock the ECSL and the government in general.

In the aftermath of this, the ECSL’s Director of Media and External Relations, Albert Massaquoi said the ID cards were printed in Greece from a vendor that has a local partner that they were communicating with.

“They are also Sierra Leoneans and they seeing and realising what is happening (with regards criticisms),” Massaquoi said in an interview with AYV’s Amadu Lamrana Bah.

Massaquoi said that the ECSL did do background check on the company that printed the ID cards and that a bidding was done.

“Even if there are background checks the fact of the matter is that this is where we are,” he said.

He agreed that the company defaulted with regards the colour photos on the ID cards.

“Our expectation, according to the bid document was that all of the cards (Photos) must be coloured,” he stated.

Massaquoi revealed that a total of nine countries were contacted for the printing of the ID cards but that only two responded.

Massaquoi furthered that the Romanian company was the most responsive of the two companies.

Sierra Leoneans expressed frustration over the poor qualities of the voter ID cards with some complaining about missing or misspelled names and addresses. Others claimed that their cards had no photos.

Distribution of the ID cards will end on Sunday and some have stated that they will not collect theirs due to its poor qualities. The ID cards are to be used by voters in the country’ multi-tier elections this June.