Police detectives yesterday seized machines suspected to be a set of Biometric Voter Register (BVR) from a Dar es Salaam factory for further inspection.
Work at Mikocheni-based Iron and Steel Industry stopped for better part of the afternoon after the premises were stormed by the law enforcers and officials from the National Electoral Commission (NEC), who acted on a tip that the machines were being used to register voters secretly.
The impounded tools include laptops, computer, webcam cameras and a finger print machine that are said to be used by the factory officials to register the company’s employees, the exercise that has lasted for least seven days.
NEC Deputy Director for Policy Planning Salvisius Nkwera confirmed to journalists that the finger print machines resemble the ones that were used by the authority to register voters.
“We just want to satisfy ourselves whether the seized machines are real BRV kits. The only gadget that resembles ours is the finger print machine,” he said, adding that police and NEC will, together examine the gadgets.
According to him, NEC was tipped by Good Samaritans and some workers that voter’s registration, the exercise that came to a close in August, was still going on at the factory.
He said the decision to seize the gadgets and conduct investigation was done in order to clear doubts to the public, factory and other stakeholders.
The company’s Communication Manager, Abubakar Mlawa who was supervising the registration exercise, said the firm lacks data of its employees, thus it decided to re-register them electronically.
He said they have been registering them for seven days during which more than 100 workers have been registered.
He explained further that despite taking the workers pictures electronically, they were not issuing any identity cards.
“We have theft problems here … we decided to re-register them to control theft and enhance security,” Mlawa said, noting that the factory has more than eight companies and 900 workers.
Explaining, he said the registration machines were supplied by a company that was contracted to purchase them for the company.
He however didn’t mention the name of the supplier.
One of the employees who preferred anonymity said they decided to tip off NEC and officials of Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) on the incident after discovering that the exercise wasn’t a usual one.
He alleged that the company management forced them to register electronically and have their pictures taken.
“We were taken pictures and finger prints by force …. those who tried to resist were threatened to lose their jobs,” he claimed.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
