ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday marked the completion of the installation of Pakistan’s Computerised Electoral Rolls System (CERS) with a signing ceremony at the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The Certificate of Acceptance signed at a ceremony is a significant milestone in the development of a state-of-the-art electoral system for Pakistan and will contribute greatly to free and fair elections in the country.

In 2006, the ECP with the support of the US Government contracted a consortium of leading local companies to execute a computerised electoral roll system for Pakistan.

Approximately $9 million were provided for the project which had two phases. The first phase included establishing logistics, data entry systems, printing and distribution of the draft and final electoral rolls for the February 2008 general elections. This phase was completed in late 2007.

The second phase consisted of procurement and installation of a suite of software applications to be used for the ongoing management of the Election Commission’s voter registration database and its electoral rolls.

The Election Commission has been working to deploy CERS at its all five locations – Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. The final deployment at the provincial Election Commission's office in Quetta was completed last Thursday.

The CERS project was implemented by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Since 2002, the US government on behalf of the American people has provided more than $2 billion to Pakistan to improve economic growth, education, health and governance and to assist with earthquake reconstruction.