Johannesburg - A company helping to
produce a new voter roll for Zimbabwe has accused the election
commission of "impropriety" in its handling of tenders,
potentially tarnishing the credibility of a poll meant to usher
in a new era of transparency post-Mugabe.
A credible vote is key to the restoration of democratic
legitimacy following a de facto coup in November that ousted
veteran leader Robert Mugabe after 37 years at the helm. It is
also crucial to unlocking badly needed financial aid and
repairing relations with Western powers.
New President Emmerson Mnangaga, 75, a onetime protege of
Mugabe, said last week that transparent elections would be held
by July and that he would respect the result if the opposition
wins.
Laxton Group, a South African-run ID systems firm with
production headquarters in China, filed papers with Harare's
Administrative Court on January 25 questioning why it had lost out
on a contract to "clean up" the list of registered voters.
The company, whose directors are mostly South African, has
been registering Zimbabwean voters since September in a United
Nations-backed attempt to generate a "clean" list of voters as
the basis for a credible election.
But the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) held a separate
tender for what is known as the 'de-duplication' process - which
ensures there is no double entry of voters or other aberrations
- and awarded it to a rival bidder, Ipsidy.
In its legal filing, Laxton accused the ZEC of manipulating
costs presented in its bid for the de-duplication contract. It
also said the ZEC had given an inexplicably low weighting to
Laxton's favourable rating in a technical test.
"It is submitted that the impropriety of the (ZEC's) conduct
in awarding the tender (to Ipsidy)... should be looked at within
the context of the whole rationale of regulating public
procurement," Laxton said in the document.
Previous elections in the southern African nation have been
marred by allegations of vote rigging, with manipulation of the
register of voters frequently at the heart of the controversy.
ZEC officials did not respond to Reuters' repeated requests
for comment on the matter.
Laxton argues it is best-placed to run the deduplication
process because the registration data, including fingerprints of
every voter, is loaded on its systems.
In its legal filing, Laxton also said US-listed Ipsidy was
facing financial difficulties that could harm its ability to do
the job properly.
According to its 2016 annual report, Ipsidy has consistently
run at a loss, has accumulated debt of $49 million (about R588 million) and needs
additional finance. The firm is also expected to incur net
losses for the "foreseeable future", it added.
"It is respectfully submitted that this was terribly
irresponsible given that a three-year warranty was required,"
Laxton said in its filing.
"If a company is unstable or unable to continue operating,
it is likely that it will not be in a position to provide these
services in three years' time."
Ipsidy did not respond to requests for comment.