52,000 who listed twice to be charged

Dar es Salaam. The National Electoral Commission (NEC) yesterday handed over to the police a list of 52,000 who registered twice for the October General Election and asked the law-enforcers to investigate and charge them.

NEC director for Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Dr Sisti Cariah, said the number of the dishonest voters who registered twice may increase as verification of voters continues.

“This is a crime. We want the police to investigate and take legal action,” said Mr Kailima Ramadhani, NEC’s Director for Elections.

The compilation of the list was done at the NEC’s election data centre located within the building of the Government Procurement Services Agency (GPSA) in Dar es Salaam.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Benedict Wakulyamba, who received the list on behalf of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Ernest Mangu, promised to work with regional police offices across the country to investigate the suspects.

“I am confident the investigation won’t take long before we take the suspects to court,” he said.

According to Mr Ramadhani, so far, a total of 12 cases on double registration have reached courts and those found guilty were sentenced between one and two years in jail.

Dr Cariah said the data centre had high capacity whereby a finger print of a voter is compared to other 24 million voters within a short time.

Within a minute, the system can compare a finger print to 16 million finger prints of other voters to identify whether a person had registered twice.

“With this system, there is no way that a voter who has registered twice will get away without being identified,” he said.

There was a case whereby a voter registered seven times at different centres, but the system identified all entries, he said.