IMAGE: Namibia Fact Check / The Africa Report
The false claim that about N$1 billion was paid to print ballot papers continues to be repeated by foreign news outlets, despite the realistic amount having been reported locally
The claim about the ECN paying a contractor “$60m” to print ballot papers resurfaced in an online article published by The Africa Report.
The article, headlined ‘Is Namibia poll at risk from ballot papers printed by firm linked to Zimbabwe ex-convict’, started off with the following introductory statement:
“There was uproar in Namibia in October after it was revealed that a South African company, Ren-Form CC, linked to former convict and Zimbabwean Wicknell Chivayo, was awarded a $60m contract by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to print ballot papers for Namibia’s general elections on 27 November to elect a new president and members of the National Assembly.”
The article has been circulating in Namibian WhatsApp spaces since publication on 13 November 2024.
The issue with the “$60m” (US$60 million) is that there is no evidence that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) paid such an amount to print ballot papers.
On 18 October 2024 the ECN issued a statement debunking the claim that it had paid about N$1 billion ((US$60 million). The ECN statement reads:
“To be clear and set the record straight: the total cost of this contract is N$6,259,686—far from the grossly inflated and fictitious figure of N$1 billion being circulated in certain media reports.”
This ECN statement was widely reported on (examples here and here) in Namibia, so there was no reason for The Africa Report to repeat the unsubstantiated “$60m” figure in its report of 13 November, almost a month after the ECN’s statement on the matter.
The Africa Report response
On 14 November 2024, Namibia Fact Check emailed the editorial desk of The Africa Report, addressing the email to The Africa Report editor Nicholas Norbrook, asking where the reporter got the “$60m” figure from. There has been no response to this request for information to date. Namibia Fact Check will update this article if or when a response is received from The Africa Report.
On 15 November 2024, Namibia Fact Check approached the writer of the article, Farai Shawn Matiashe, directly via WhatsApp and asked him where he got the “$60m” figure from.
Matiashe pointed to a ZimLive.com article of 18 October and a Voice of America (VOA) report from 23 October as the sources for the “$60m” figure he cites in his article. However, ZimLive.com also does not indicate where it got the figure from in its article, while the VOA report does not make mention of “$60m”, but quotes the Namibian official opposition leader, McHenry Venaani, mentioning a figure of N$800 million in reference to accusations leveled against the printing company, Ren-Form CC, in Zimbabwe.
To be clear, no evidence exists or has been cited or presented to date that shows that the ECN paid “$60m” (US$60 million) or about N$1 billion for the printing of ballot papers.
Following this exchange between Namibia Fact Check and Matiashe, the introductory paragraph of The Africa Report article was changed to the following:
“There was uproar in Namibia in October after it was revealed that a South African company, Ren-Form CC, linked to former convict and Zimbabwean Wicknell Chivayo, was awarded a N$6.2m ($350,000) contract by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to print ballot papers for Namibia’s general elections on 27 November to elect a new president and members of the National Assembly.”
However, despite this, there is no note on the article stating that it was amended or updated to correct information.
#NamibiaElections2024
This is an output of and for the Elections Fact Checking Coalition of Namibian media and civil society partners combating election-related misinformation.