Writing about Zimbabwe every day can be most educational - especially when, in the last few years, I have learned more about mathematics than I did in all my years at school.

Who could have dreamt that I would ever have use for such figures: “Three hundred and sixty five octillion, two hundred and thirty six septillion, five hundred and forty four sextillion, eight hundred and seventy six quintillion, three hundred and twenty four quadrillion, five hundred and sixty four trillion, six hundred and seventy two billion, four hundred and fifty three million, one hundred and eighty five thousand, three hundred and thirty three dollars and fifty two cents only“? (Don’t you love the “only” at the end of the cheque?

In figures, this would read “365 236 876 325 564 673 453 185 333,52″!

Yes, I fully realise that this is an internet “spoof” but this kind of figure was commonplace in Zimbabwe until they decided to shelve the local currency which cost more to print than the face value of the notes…

And whilst this sort of huge figure accounting must have led to some almighty faux pas, I think that it would be a safe assumption to reckon that there was also some fairly imaginative accounting practises adopted across the board!

I do hasten to assure you that not all of these practises were fraudulent.

These huge figures have faded into our memories with the economy adopting the currencies of South Africa, America and the UK.

I was rather interested, therefore, in an article that I read today that dealt with inaccuracies in the electoral nominal role - and the facts therein suggest that the listing wad given the same amount of attention as the broken Zimbabwean economy.

“A preliminary report released by the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) has found that 74,021 names on Zimbabwe’s voters’ roll are for people aged 100 and over. The report, titled ‘2013 Vision - Seeing Double and the Dead’ also found that there are 82,456 people registered who are aged between 90 and 100. These figures are quite amazing when you consider that average life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 for women and 37 for men, and in light of the fact that the World Health Organisation predicts that only 14.7% of people live beyond 60 in Zimbabwe.

The researchers have not been able to determine whether the very large number of elderly people on the voters roll (over 17% of the roll comprises people aged 60 and over) are living or deceased. Under Zimbabwe’s repressive ‘Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act’ (AIPPA), the RAU was obliged to apply to the Registrar-General for an electronic copy of registered deaths. The Registrar-General is obligated to reply within 30 days of receiving the request - but he failed to comply with the law.”

The report goes on to highlight how 3 voters are supposed to have put together 339 ballots - and for some reason this is overlooked by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission who reported a ‘free and fair’ election - evidently not when you remember that ZANU PF operatives removed the ballot boxes of the first round of the Presidential election and held them at an unknown place for five weeks.

In that time, the ballot result was re-adjusted to ensure that Morgan Tsvangirai’s vote count did not cross the 50% plus one vote needed to defeat Mugabe. Obviously I am in no position to substantiate this claim, but surely it is evident enough.

“The audit highlights other irregularities. For example, the researchers also call attention to the large number of duplicate entries on the roll. Despite the fact that the Registrar-General has said, “There is no way an ID number can appear twice in the same roll as alleged,” the researchers show that in some cases ID numbers, names, addresses, birth dates and all details are duplicated. Specifically: 182564 instances of duplicate entries were identified where people were registered in two or more constituencies simultaneously. The report acknowledges that this is could happen, for example, if a person was registered in one constituency during one poll, and another a second time. However they point out that 66.7% of the constituency shifts (if this is what the duplicate entries are supposed to signify) occur in rural areas, and therefore do not reflect the typical rural-urban migration pattern that has taken place in recent years in Zimbabwe.”

Mugabe and his cohorts obviously love to play with numbers, but their web of deceit and lies has a habit of being found out. Sadly, not within a timeframe that allows anyone to object or prevent such deception.

Mathematics in Zimbabwe has magical overtones that we were never made privy to at school.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man