Strange connection between South Africa’s election queue chaos and a dodgy Starlink Zimbabwe deal

The supplier of the troublesome voting management devices (VMDs) used in South Africa’s 2024 elections has been linked to convicted fraudster Wicknell Chivayo, the owner of a company that controversially secured “exclusive” Starlink distribution rights in Zimbabwe.

The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is currently investigating why many of the R14,000 VMDs it acquired from Ren-Form at a total cost of R566 million were not functioning as designed on voting day.

The tablet-like devices were procured in 2021 to help crack down on double-voting, which occurred in the 2019 national and provincial elections.

However, the brand new VMDs already experienced issues during 2021’s local government elections.

Problems were supposedly caused by a lack of connectivity at some voting stations. That excuse is curious, given that the VMDs are supposed to work without an Internet connection.

During the latest national and provincial elections on 29 May 2024, many of the VMDs malfunctioned again, forcing voting station workers to manually check and cross off people’s names on physical voter rolls.

That significantly increased the time it took for some people to cast their ballots.

In the case of one voting station in Hatfield, for example, many voters who joined the line in the late morning were still waiting their turn after midnight.

The IEC has acknowledged that these problems could have been due to additional software it loaded on the VMDs, as claimed by Ren-Form.

However, the company that supplied the VMDs is no stranger to controversy.

Reports from The Newshawks, The Sentry, and Open Secrets recently put Ren-Form at the centre of a major corruption scandal concerning a $40-million (R730-million) contract to supply the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) with biometric voter registration kits and other election materials.

The deals were allegedly secured through the involvement of controversial socialite Wicknell Chivayo, one of the businessmen accused of acting as a middleman or agent for Ren-Form.

Chivayo is infamous among Zimbabweans for his lavish lifestyle. In social media posts, he regularly poses with expensive Rolls-Royce cars and clothes and flaunts excursions, including business-class flights.

Chivayo was convicted of fraud in 2004 and sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison in Zimbabwe. He only served three years as two were conditionally set aside.

Ren-Form allegedly overcharged the ZEC for numerous products and services, including R23 million for a server that normally costs R90,000.

Chivayo is believed to have close ties to Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who recently announced the approval of a supposed “exclusive” distribution deal for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service in Zimbabwe with IMC Communications.

MyBroadband asked Chivayo and Ren-Form for comment on the allegations but neither had responded by the time of publication.

While IMC Communications was relatively unknown at the time of the announcement, investigations by journalists soon revealed that it was owned by Chivayo, with an address in the same building as Intratek, an energy company linked to Chivayo.

Several Zimbabweans have blasted Mnangagwa for seemingly sidelining the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) in approving Starlink.

Potraz had strongly opposed people using Starlink’s roaming service in the country before Mnangagwa’s announcement.

It conducted raids alongside police, confiscating the equipment and arresting those caught using the system, including a former minister’s son.

The Herald has since reported that Mnangagwa’s assertion that IMC Communications has the exclusive rights to Starlink’s distribution in Zimbabwe was incorrect.

The regulator told the publication that it had issued licences to several Internet service providers (ISPs) to operate the service, none of whom were given sole or exclusivity rights.

Potraz also said that Starlink’s licence to operate in the country still needs to be approved. At the time of publication, Starlink’s official coverage map showed an estimated launch date of its service in Zimbabwe in the third quarter of 2024.

Starlink typically wants to deal directly with customers for its residential service and only partners with official resellers for its business connectivity packages.

If it is indeed willing to work through a third party in Zimbabwe, that raises questions about Starlink’s hesitance to launch in South Africa.

It is an open secret in South Africa that Starlink scrapped its local launch plans over the country’s strict BEE ownership rules for telecom licensees.

Among these regulations is the requirement that licensees must be 30% owned by historically-disadvantaged groups.

However, Starlink could comply with local ownership requirements by working through established and licensed local partners.

Several Internet service providers (ISPs) have shown interest in reselling Starlink services in South Africa and have told MyBroadband they already possess all the necessary licences to offer it legally.

Sceptics of these offers might argue that this would increase the price of the service, as the ISPs would also need to profit from Starlink subscriptions.

However, proponents would argue that Starlink potentially threatens the local satellite ISP and reseller industry, as well as the jobs it has created.

Starlink’s estimated launch date in South Africa has remained unknown for several years, while all of the country’s neighbours have either launched the service already or have received an estimated rollout date.