ZEC signs contract with China's Laxton

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has signed a contract with a Chinese firm, Laxton Group of Companies, to supply Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits, which are expected in the country in the next three months.

The introduction of the BVR kits means Zimbabweans now have to go and register afresh as voters.

The electoral body said previously police and Zec officers on duty on polling day were allowed to vote in advance, this time voters were supposed to be at their wards where they were registered.

Zec chairperson Justice Rita Makarau, said this while addressing senior police officers in Harare yesterday on Electoral Laws and Policing Elections in Zimbabwe ahead of 2018 harmonised elections.

Police Commissioner-General Dr Augustine Chihuri, his deputies and officers commanding provinces, police directors and chief staff officers attended the meeting.

Justice Makarau said if the supplier performed in accordance with the contract, the kits were expected to arrive in the country by end of August.

"We have now signed a contract with a supplier of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits as of now and the kits should be supplied in terms of that contract. And we are firmly on our way to going biometrically in terms of voter registration. The contract was signed with Laxton Group of Companies which is from China," she said.

Justice Makarau said the firm was chosen out of a process that they initiated with United Nations Development Programme and it was very                     transparent.

"You may have heard quite a lot of outcry in the press about that company, but I want to assure this audience (the senior officers) that the group was chosen out of a process that we initiated with the United Nations Development Programme. This was a transparent process, it remained a transparent process because we did not change the process from what we had agreed upon with the United Nations Development Programme.

"What happened later on in the process is that the Government decided to come in and fund the acquisition. So what changed was the source of the funding and not the process. So we are confident of the choices that have been made because that choice was made out of a process that we started independently with the United Nations Development Programme and which we continued with right up to the end," Justice Makarau said.

"So I want to assure this audience that we have a supplier of the Biometric Voter Registration kits. We sincerely hope that if they perform in accordance with the contract, within the next 90 or so days we should have the kits in the country," she added.

Laxton Group has been active in Africa after it supplied 8 000 BVR kits and instant plastic card issuance kits to Tanzania in 2015. It has also worked in Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique, where it reportedly supplied BVR kits, generators, batteries and other accessories for voter registration and elections.

Its system has also been used on identifications cards in Malawi.

Justice Makarau said following the introduction of these BVR kits, every Zimbabwean should go and register afresh as a voter.

She said people should present themselves to be registered since it would be a new registration exercise, which was different from the past.