Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah says tight security measures are in place to ensure that voter registration equipment should not be stolen.
Ansah said this during the National Elections Consultative Forum (NECOF) conducted on Wednesday in Lilongwe following the theft of voter registration equipment in Mzuzu – which is still missing – and in Mwanza – which was found.
Different stakeholders including Members of Parliament and political party representatives attended the event.
However, the Malawi Police Service refused to attend the function saying they do not have evidence to report to members of the public.
Speaking to reporters, Jane Ansah said the registration workers that the commission recruited for the registration exercise have no criminal record and the commission has been involving various stakeholders during the process.
“We have all the security measures in place and starting from the beginning there were no secrets because of the measures we took when employing the officers and even Malawi Police Service has been always there as well as other stakeholders such Civil Society Organizations,” she said.
Ansah added that the Malawi Police Service is still investigating the two cases and once finalised the police will inform the public at large about the results.
She added that although the Mzuzu laptop is currently nowhere to be found, the information which the commission gathered through registration is still in its system.
Last week, a MEC registration kit used at three centres in the central region went missing while being transported to Mwanza. The kit was found in Mozambique. Earlier this week, a laptop was also reported missing.
MEC has a total number of 1499 kits, 1445 are in use while 54 are reserved.
