Makarau comes under fire for her statement on voters roll

via Makarau comes under fire for her statement on voters roll | SW Radio Africa by Tichaona Sibanda on Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Justice Rita Makarau, the woman who presided over the July 31st elections last year, has found herself coming under much criticism.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson came under attack on multiple fronts after she testified in court Monday that her commission is still unable to provide electronic copies of the voters roll because of a broken down computer server.

Testifying in the election petition brought to the Electoral Court by Jameson Timba, the losing MDC-T MP for Mt Pleasant, Justice Makarau said reports from Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede’s office indicate that the servers were broken down last year and to date nothing has been done to repair the equipment because of financial challenges.

MDC-T spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said these were blatant lies by Makarau as computers always have a backup system. He accused the ZEC chair for working with Mudede in trying to hide the truth about the voters roll.

Ezra Sibanda, the losing parliamentary candidate for the MDC-T in Vungo, Midlands South, told SW Radio Africa’s Hidden Story program that only a fool would believe that a computer does not have a back up system.

Sibanda said for a learned lady like Makarau to stand up and tell the world that the server is still down, nine months after the elections, is just a sick joke.

‘She lying, she’s been lying a lot and she continues to lie. That’s a very silly excuse from her,’ fumed Sibanda.

The broadcaster turned politician said if Mudede had the resources to pay Nikuv millions of dollars to help rig the elections, how is failing to get a few hundred dollars to fix the problem.

‘Mudede and ZEC had an agenda to be part of the rigging machinery and they will never produce the electronic copies of the voters roll, even if they manage to fix the server,’ he said.