FIVE polling officers who were manning a Hillside Junior School polling station in Bulawayo during last week’s elections, on Monday appeared at the Bulawayo regional electoral Court charged with allowing an unregistered person to vote.
REPORT BY STAFF REPORTER
The alleged unregistered voter appeared separately at the same court facing a charge of fraudulently casting his ballots while not registered as a voter.
Simiphi Moyo (56) of Four Winds suburb, a teacher at Hillside Junior School and was polling station presiding officer, polling officers Julian Nkiwane (40) of Jacaranda Avenue, Saursetown, a teacher at the same school, Nomvuyo Nkomo (47) of Cowdray Park, a lecturer at the United College of Education, Sinikiwe Siziba (38) of Cowdray Park, a teacher at Mahlathini Primary School and Sifelipilu Simanga (39) of Annabel Drive Four Winds, employed at Mzilikazi Primary School were not asked to plead to the charge of allowing an unregistered voter to cast his ballots when they appeared before Bulawayo regional court magistrate Crispen Mberewere.
The magistrate granted Moyo $100 bail while the other four were granted free bail and remanded to August 22. They were advised to report twice to the police every fortnight, to reside at their given addresses, to surrender their passports and not to interfere with the State witnesses until their case is finalised.
Three other polling officers namely Gena Hungwe, Eunice Mlauzi, Nozipho Jackson Moyo and a police woman, Priscilla Bhenyu, are listed as State witnesses in the case. The State led by Tinashe Dzipe alleged that the five who are represented by Lison Ncube were contracted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to be polling officers at the Hillside Junior School polling station during the July 31 elections.
Moyo was in charge of assigning duties to the other four colleagues during the process. Nkiwane was her assistant and recorder, Nkomo was an usher, Siziba and Simanga were checking names in the voter’s roll. It is the State case that at about 8.30am Christopher David Roger entered the polling station with the intention to vote. He produced his passport to Nkomo who allowed him to go to checkers of the voter’s roll, Siziba and Simanga, who after checking his name in the roll, failed to find it and sent him back to Moyo and Nkiwane without communicating to them why they were sending Roger to them.
It is the State case that Moyo and her colleague did not bother to check the reason why the other polling officers sent Roger to them, but checked his passport.
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They allegedly directed him to Moyo, Mlauzi and Hungwe who issued him with ballot papers. The court heard that Bhenyu, a police officer who was at the polling station, allegedly saw Roger being issued with a first ballot paper and raised a query with Nkomo as to why he was being given the ballot papers when he was not registered. It is the State case that Nkomo ignored the police officer and waited until Roger had voted and gone.
A report made to the police led to the arrest of the five. Meanwhile, Roger was not asked to plead to a charge of casting his ballots while not registered as a voter. The magistrate granted him $100 bail and remanded him to August 22 for trial. He was ordered to surrender his passport, reside at the same address, report twice to the police per fortnight and not interfere with witnesses until the case is finalised.
