“Most of them did not indicate where their funding is coming from and it specifically states in the Act that anybody using foreign funding must actually surrender that funding to the Commission to ensure that the organization is actually using it for the purposes intended,” Joyce Laetitia Kazembe told The Zimbabwean on the side-lines of a meeting with editors.
“We need to know the source of funds and quite a number of the organizations did not give us that information. Once they supply it, they will be accredited. Once they are accredited and they qualify they will come for training first and then they are going to be using only material that has been produced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for this particular instance,” she added.
Over 1,000 CSOs have applied for accreditation to engage in voter education. The Election Resource Centre’s Director, Tawanda Chimhini, said the requirements outlined by Kazembe above had not been communicated to them. “The actions of ZEC are regrettable and we encourage them strongly to really open up the process of voter education. If there are any requirements that ZEC would want to see met ahead of any accreditation for voter education, can that be communicated so that people adhere to what has been put across?” she said.
“We still insist that voter education should not be the sole preserve of ZEC. It should be something that ordinary Zimbabweans can engage with because we all have a right to information. So you cannot limit any attempt to educate people to engage with the election process,” Chimhini added.
The Ecumenical Peace Observation Initiative Director, Peter Tendai Maregere, on Monday said his members had also applied for voter education accreditation. According to ZEC, the mobile voter registration which started last Monday ends on July 10.
Post published in: News