ED fires party chef over ballot scandal

By The Standard and Newsday | Jan. 17, 2022 | 2 Min read

It also emerged that Dzora had been under probe by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) for allegedly engaging a company called VGP Technologies, based at Engineering House along Rezende Street in Harare which in turn subcontracted Lightpress, whose address is given as 17 Conald Road, Graniteside, Harare, to print the ballot papers.

BY MOSES MATENGA

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has reportedly fired the Zanu PF director for administration, Dickson Dzora for allegedly conniving with some officials to corruptly engage a private company to print thousands of ballot papers for the party’s provincial polls, NewsDay has learnt.

Dzora was fired after the politburo meeting held on Saturday.

This confirmed that VGP Technologies had no capacity to do the job.

The CIO investigations reportedly red-flagged Dzora, who was allegedly working in cahoots with other party bigwigs and employees, including one identified as Munyaradzi Katsande who was in the ICT department.

Katsande was reportedly fired after he allegedly siphoned thousands of dollars from the party.

Party insiders said an alert secretary for security Lovemore Matuke raised eyebrows on the scam.

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Matuke then engaged the CIO to investigate why the party subcontracted the work which was usually done by its printing arm, Jongwe Printers.

Matuke was not reachable for comment yesterday, while the party spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa was not picking calls.

Zanu PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu could not immediately comment on the matter.

“Why don’t you call me tomorrow?” Mpofu curtly said.

But sources told NewsDay that more heads will roll at the party after it emerged that some executives were involved in other corrupt schemes.

Ironically, during the just-ended provincial elections, there were reports of a serious shortage of ballot papers, a situation that caused chaos during the elections.

“Such printing business is usually done by Jongwe Printers and it had already printed the ballot papers before Dzora approached VGP Technologies for the same. His company of choice did not have the capacity and it subcontracted another company based in Graniteside called Lightpress for the job. Investigations revealed personal interests and connivance at the party headquarters for them to benefit,” a Zanu PF insider said.

Sources said the ballot paper shortage scandal enraged the party, in particular Mnangagwa, as it contributed to complaints brought before the party commissariat department as one of the reasons the provincial elections were chaotic.