By Own Correspondent| The ZEC Chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba has revealed that the elections body will investigate how one political party allegedly managed to secure prospective voters’ mobile details and their voting centres, in a development which has seen the party texting prospective voters campaign messages.

Prospective voters have been receiving text messages from Zanu Pf aspiring candidates canvassing for support ahead of the harmonised polls slated for July 30.

Below is an example of the text messages being sent to prospective voters:

ZEC Chairperson Justice Chigumba said the commission would investigate the matter and establish how that political party got prospective voters’ mobile numbers and their polling centres

“This is why we refused to avail pictures on the voters roll that we gave political parties. We value the privacy of voters and as we are speaking, how that happened remains speculation. We will investigate the matter,” she said.

ZEC Commissioner Netsai Mushonga however said that the political party which was sending these messages had done its own research and had not acquired this information via the voters roll.

“Remember people leave their mobile numbers in public places including supermarkets. Political parties may have also done their research and acquired people’s mobile numbers,” she said.

Commissioner Qhubani Moyo, on the other hand, said that mobile network operators had facilities where they sell their databases to third parties for bulk messaging.

Responding to questions on whether it had sold the database on social media, Econet refuted the allegations and said:

“Econet holds customer and client data in the strictest of confidence, in line with the requirements of the law. It does not give or sell any customer data to third parties. The company only shares relevant customer information with regulatory authorities, such POTRAZ, in line with subscriber registration rules and its licensing requirement.”