ECZ Awards $16 MN Biometric Voter Registration Contract

The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has awarded Smartmatic International Holdings a contract worth $16,687,898 to conduct a Biometric Voter Registration programme.

The programme will update the voters roll ahead of the 2021 general elections expected next year, with Smartmatic tasked with supplying, delivering, installing, training and commissioning 26,000 Biometric Voter Registration kits.

The company was previously selected by the United Nations Development Programme in 2010 to create the country’s first biometric voter register and worked in Zambia again in 2015/16.

However, its work in Uganda in preparation for the 2016 general elections has been subject to allegations of fraud, with similar reports of alleged bribes and corruption also connected with the firm’s work elsewhere, particularly in Venezuela.

In March the ECZ said it needed K100 million for a voter registration exercise scheduled to start in May.

According to the ECZ CEO Patrick Nshindano the exercise will target 9 million potential voters. The total budget for the exercise is over K800 million.

Nshindano confirmed that the ECZ is in discussions with the department for National Registration to ensure plans are aligned.

Meanwhile, the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) called on Government to provide clarity regarding its plans for issuing new National Registration Cards (NRCs) ahead of the 2021 elections.

CCMG requested details regarding any NRC programmes in order to ensure that citizens are given adequate opportunity to register to vote and avoid disenfranchisement. Without a valid NRC citizens will be unable to secure a Voters card.

In 2015 national mobile NRC issuance took place for several months before the mobile voter registration exercise. Speaking on the lack of clarity concerning NRC issuance CCMG Steering Committee Spokesperson Fr Chikoya stated, “CCMG is very concerned about the lack of any publicly available information related to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ schedule for the nationwide mobile NRC issuance exercise. We are now just more than two months away from when ECZ says it will begin mobile voter registration.”

Fr Chikoya further noted that failure to provide this information could give rise to the perception that the process is unfair and damage public confidence in future elections.