Malawi electoral commission tussles inaccuracy of its staffs

By Frank Kauteka Tembo

Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has disclosed that last series phase of Voters Registration conducted in the southern region has been costly due to copious mistakes by the staff.

Commissioner Rev Mezuwa Banda made the revelation during the training workshop of Registration Supervisors, Constituency Returning Officers and District Election Officers of Chitipa district in the northern city of Mzuzu.

The training has come in preparations of the next series of voter’s registration which will include Chitipa district in the north and some districts in the central region.

“To error is in human and whenever you have a process of such magnitude you have other people committing single mistakes which are costly, you don’t need to have a single mistake at all in the process everything just need to be perfect this is why whenever we find a single mistake we go back to the base so it is costly to correct the mistakes,” he said.

He attributed mistakes like misspelling of names, wrong signatures and voting centers as major mistakes which the body is stumbling upon, a development he said is costly correcting such mistakes during the voters’ registration.

The Commissioner then appealed to the participants to take the training seriously in order to diminish such blunders which the Commission is encountering that might lead the elections not to be free, fair and credible.

Chitipa district voters’ registration will be done earlier than stated January due to the appeal of concerned citizens in the district.

“Originally Chitipa district was going to be dealt with in January but then after most of stakeholders expressed concerns that January will be rainy season and roads are impassable and people are too busy in fields it will be difficult to handle Chitipa.

“So the commission decided to reschedule the phase and bring Chitipa alongside some district in central region so it will be covered earlier, later on we will cover remaining part of the Northern region simultaneously with the Central region.” Said the Commissioner Mezuwa Banda.

He added that shortly the Commission will announce to when the phase will start.