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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter

There have been several attempts to hack a server of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the electoral management body has made a police report against a shadowy group calling themselves Team Pachedu for that offence, legislators have heard.

ZEC Chief Elections Officer, Mr Utloile Silaigwana said the group had also been spreading malicious information that sought to undermine the integrity of the Commission.

Mr Silaigwana said this today while giving oral evidence before Parliament’s portfolio committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs during a post-budget consultation where he was outlining the implications of the 2023 national budget on their operations.

“Yes, there have been a hundred attempts to hack our server. Of course, the server has not been broken. There have been bigger efforts to break into it,” said Mr Silaigwana.

“Team Pachedu has also made several attempts but has failed. We have reported them to the police for attempting to break into our server which is an offence. They have also maliciously spread false information. It is some kind of a silly manoeuvre to try and destabilise ZEC.”

The committee was gathering evidence from stakeholders to enable substantive debate on the 2023 national budget that was presented by Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube.