Ballot papers arrive
Ballot papers arriveBy Jack Zimba
Monday October 13, 2008 [04:00]
BALLOT papers for the October 30 presidential election arrived in the country yesterday aboard a chartered aircraft from South Africa. The plane, carrying the ballot papers printed in South Africa by Uniprint, arrived at the Lusaka International Airport around 13:00 hours.
However, five of the 46 pallets containing the ballot papers are expected to arrive in the country at 13:00 hours today. ECZ deputy director Priscilla Isaacs explained that the commission had planned to bring in the ballot papers in one consignment, but had to offload five pallets from the plane due to fuel problems in South Africa.
Isaac admitted that the stakeholders were not informed in good time about the decision to airlift the ballot papers in two batches.
“We only got the information from the air charter company about 30 minutes before the plane could take off that due to fuel issues and weight issues, they had to offload five of the 46 pallets,” she said.
Isaacs said the ECZ could not wait for a bigger aircraft, because they were working under pressure and with limited time.
She said all the ballot papers were supposed to be ready for inspection by the stakeholders beginning tomorrow (Tuesday).
However, the decision to bring in the ballot papers in two consignments has raised suspicion among the stakeholders.
United Party National Development (UPND) secretary general, Tiens Kahenya, who was at the airport to receive the ballot papers, said the explanation by the ECZ that they could not charter a bigger aircraft to bring in the ballot papers was not satisfactory.
“Why should you charter an aircraft? They knew when they were dispatching from the factory the weight of the consignment so why didn't we charter a bigger aircraft? We are the ones paying for this aircraft,” he said.
But Isaac assured the stakeholders that the ballot papers would be secured.
Isaac said even in 2006, the commission brought in the ballot papers in two batches.
The process of printing ballot papers by Universal Printing Company (Uniprint) was witnessed by all stakeholders, including agents from all the four political parties taking part in the presidential election.
Labels: ELECTIONS
posted by MrK @ 4:42 AM
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