Maravi

MMD plans own K27bn PVT exercise

MMD plans own K27bn PVT exercise
By George Chellah
Fri 20 May 2011, 04:01 CAT

THE MMD is planning to carry out its own parallel vote tabulation (PVT) and intends to spend over K27 billion on the exercise, it has been revealed.

Well-placed sources within the MMD yesterday disclosed that costs for the operation codenamed ‘African Community Project’ include human resource, project equipment and organisational or administrative expenses.

The source revealed that the ruling party would spend over K11 billion on human resource alone for the project.

“Under human resource, we will have a national PVT manager, a national PVT coordinator, a national IT manager and 72 district PVT coordinators,” the source said. “We will also have 150 constituency PVT coordinators, 154 data verification assistants, 300 data entry assistants and 13,000 election monitors or data collectors. This brings the total budget of this item to K11, 377, 200, 000.”

The source disclosed that other costs for the project include equipment, which is expected to gobble exactly K14,362,484,000.

“The equipment that we have budgeted for include 77 photo/printer/scanner/fax, 82 desktop computers and 10 laptop computers,” the source said. “We have also planned for over 13,000 cell phones, 78 motor vehicles, 226 telephone landlines and 13,000 bicycles. This brings the total cost on project equipment to K14,362,484,000.”

The source said approximately K1.4 billion has been budgeted for administrative or organisational costs for the project.

“These costs include fuel and local transport, telephone or fax, accommodation and meals when our officers are on duty, production of manuals and seminar facilitation,” the source said. “Other organisational costs are publicity (including television and radio programmes), stationery or consumables and general administration (contingency, insurance etc). All this has been budgeted at exactly K1,386,000,000.”

The source disclosed that the grand total for the PVT project budget stands at US $6,781,421 million or K27,125,684,000.

“I am sure you can see from the details above that we are busy working. In fact, even these Americans from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), who want to conduct PVT in Zambia will not be allowed unless they agree to work with NGOs aligned to the MMD,” the source said.

“If they don’t agree to work with our NGOs, then I’m sorry they are not going anywhere and their desire to conduct PVT this year will just remain a pipe dream.”

President Rupiah Banda has branded the calls to use PVT by political parties including the international community as illegal. However, the Law Association of Zambia has said there is nothing illegal about PVT.

Labels: MMD, VOTERIGGING

posted by MrK @ 5:08 AM