Angola: Spanish company chosen to manage elections rejects UNITA fraud accusations

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Angola: Spanish company chosen to manage elections rejects UNITA fraud accusations

7:31 CAT | 22 Feb 2022

File photo: Lusa

Spanish company Indra, which through its subsidiary Minsait will manage the Angolan elections scheduled for August, on Monday rejected accusations of fraud from Angola’s main opposition party, UNITA, which announced it would challenge the choice.

“Minsait’s proposal was unanimously selected by the Evaluation Commission of Angola’s National Electoral Commission, made up of representatives of all the country’s political parties, that is, the same party that announced it would contest the selection of Minsait chose Minsait’s proposal,” a source from the company told Spanish news agency, Efe.

“The company has never received sanctions, administrative or criminal, for causes related to the provision of its services,” the same source added, in response to public accusations made by UNITA leaders, who said that Indra was condemned in Spain for having “fraudulent practices” in the 2012 Angolan elections.

The Angolan press links the accusations made by UNITA and other civic associations to a sanction imposed by the Spanish tax authority, for unjustified costs related to the organisation of the 2012 elections, which were detected in a tax inspection of the group, which ended in 2018.

“The fine is purely of a fiscal nature, it is not related to fraudulent practices or anything like that, it is just a consequence of not having been able to justify some invoices with documentary support,” said the source.

UNITA announced last week that it will challenge the public tender in which the Spanish company Indra was hired to manage the technological system for the general elections scheduled for August and requested a parliamentary hearing from the electoral commission.

According to the leader of UNITA’s parliamentary group, Liberty Chiyaka, the objection to the tender promoted by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) arises because Indra’s “conduct has harmed electoral transparency”.

For UNITA, Indra, “convicted in Spain for fraudulent practices”, allegedly “intentionally declared false or erroneous facts in order to participate in the tender held by the CNE, with the aim of preventing the participation of other interested parties and restricting competition”.

The criterion “required by the CNE of experience in the supply and provision of goods and services in SADC [Southern African Development Community] countries, for more than 10 years, in addition to being illegal, violating the principle of equality, is also contrary to the legal principles regarding competition and the prohibition of practices restricting competition”.

Indra has been challenged by opposition political parties and Angolan civil society for allegedly “rigging the results” of elections in Angola, held in 2008, 2012 and 2017.

In a statement sent to Lusa on Monday, Indra said that the electoral process would be carried out in a “professional and transparent way”.

The spokesman for the CNE, Lucas Quilundo, said in February that the withdrawal of the other competitor, SmartMatic, was due to non-compliance with the rules of the tender and ruled out that the choice of Indra compromised the “smoothness” of the electoral process, despite the Angolan opposition contesting the choice due to allegations of fraud.

Source: Lusa