Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Scores of election observers who were contracted by the Zimbabwe Elections Support Network (ZESN) to observe the 23 August Harmonised Elections are yet to be paid, a Sunday News report claims.
The observers, who said they have failed to get an audience with ZESN, are threatening legal action.
When contacted for comment by the publication, the person who answered the ZESN National Director Rindai Chipfunde Vava’s mobile phone said:
She is in a meeting, you can contact the chairperson, and I will send you their name.
But what I know is that payments are ongoing, even ZEC is still doing payments.
One of the affected observers said they were promised that payments would be made by the 30th of August. Said the observer:
A lot of us have not received their payments for the work we did on election day.
We were contracted to be election observers during the August general elections.
We signed contracts that they were going to pay us US$65, US$60 for observing the election, and US$5 was supposed to be for airtime.
They had also said they were going to offer us lunch on the day and they told us that on the 30th of August 2023, we would have been paid.
It’s now, a month later we have not received our money for the work we did, and we are being told stories every day about our payments.
They told us that Econet was withholding our monies, people are disgruntled that we did the work and now we are not getting paid.
When we contacted Econet about the issue, they said they were not aware of the development, they said if anything a company that deposits its funds through the USD Ecocash platform is able to pay its own people.
They said they have no role to play in the distribution of funds to individuals.
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