Trevor Ncube's newspaper reported

Zimbabwe Election Commission Spokesperson Dr Qhubani Moyo has reported Trevor Ncube's The Standard newspaper to the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe over a story that appeared on Sunday alleging that he said the Commission was rushed by politicians and was forced to release results of 2018 harmonised elections before all processes were complete.

Yesterday Dr Moyo said, "The statement ascribed to my person as having been spoken during the ZESN workshop are untrue. I never at any stage of my presentation make such ridiculous claims. Talk of gutter journalism this is one example. The Standard Newspaper should be ashamed of having such reporters on the newsroom."

Find Moyo's full letter to VMCZ below:


12 March 2019The Director
Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe
Harare

RE: COMPLAINT AGAINST THE STANDARD NEWSPAPER

I write to file a complaint against the Standard Newspaper for their publication of 10 March 2109 in which they ran a story titled "We were overwhelmed says ZEC". The story correctly points out my submissions to the ZESN workshop that the commission was overwhelmed by the number of candidates in some constituencies in which political parties fielded a high number of candidates but goes on to make some additions that completely distort the meaning of my presentation. In my presentation I said the following regarding results management:

Results Management entails the production of the V11 and the collation of those polling stations returns at Ward Centres. Transmission from polling station to ward, to constituency centre, to district centre, to province and to the National Results centre is a process.

In as much as ZEC adopted two transmission routes, the collation itself was overwhelmed by the number of candidates in the tripartite election.

There was an overwhelming amount of contesting candidates in some urban constituencies.

For instance, in Pumula Constituency, there were 21 MP contestants, 17 Councillor Contestants in one ward and 23 Presidential contestants.

In this case, the presiding officer was supposed to produce 61 V11 forms for Polling Agents, 3 to be posted outside, 4 given to Observers and the Media besides the ZEC Official copies.

 The above scenario meant a lot of work for our electoral officials at polling stations. The problem escalated to the ward and constituency centres.

 Despite this huge amount of work, ZEC managed to announce the results in time.

 ZEC cannot rule out the need to continuously improve the Results Management System. ZEC is looking at modalities for an effective Results Management System which embraces both technology and Real-time Transmission.

The Standard Newspaper reporters Blessing Mhlanga and Sharon Sibindi in their story decided to add a paragraph that was untrue and effectively changed the meaning of the story. The offensive paragraph reads as follows " A Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) Commissioner has claimed that the body was overwhelmed by the high number of candidates in last year's elections so much that it ended up mixing up some results.ZEC Commissioner Qhubani Moyo told a post-election workshop organized by Zimbabwe Election Support Network ( ZESN) in Bulawayo last week"

It is this misleading paragraph which distorted my presentation and in the process misled the audiences on the position of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission regarding results management. I humbly request that the Standard Newspaper captures my exact presentation without any additions to avoid ascribing a different meaning to what I said. I never at any given time of my presentation say that "The Commission was overwhelmed to an extent of mixing up some results"

I trust and hope the responsible paper will make necessary corrective measures to restore the correct meaning to my presentation.

Regards

Qhubani Moyo (PhD)
Commissioner-Zimbabwe Electoral Commission