UNDP IT specialist accused of being ‘ghost user’ in Malawi elections case

An information technology specialist working for the United Nations Development (UNDP) is being suspected as the ‘ghost user’ that stands accused of hacking into Malawi Electoral Commission’s system and approving votes in the May 21 elections.

Presenting his testimony in the Constitutional Court, Daud Suleman, who was the sixth and last witness for Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera, claimed an unauthorized user entered the MEC system and unliterary approved over 4,000 of MEC’s 5,002 polling centre results, thus electing Peter Mutharika president.

Suleman, an information technology (IT) expert, made a simulation of the elections results management system in court, explaining and demonstrating how data was manipulated in the system.

Although Suleman did not point fingers at any individual, reports that have pointed to UNDP IT specialist Joel Jaisi as the ‘ghost user’ that hacked into the MEC system.

An ICT security expert who talked to Nyasa Times on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said all fingers point to Jaisi.

“Jaisi is the one who wrote the [RMS] application himself but he did not provide a manual and documentation on how it works. Which is not only suspect but also unprofessional. He is the one that set up and implemented the system and he knows it inside out.  Muhabi Chisi and his boys at MEC have no idea how this system works. If there was any information that was deleted from the RMS, Jaisi knows everything,” said the expert.

Another source corroborated this storyline, pointing to the fact that lawyer Frank Mbeta who is defending President Peter Mutharika in the case occasionally went out of court during last session to consult with Jaisi.

“The lawyer was receiving texts messages from Jaisi who was guiding him on what to do and say in court,” he said.

The source, who is working closely with one of the parties on the court case, told Nyasa Times that the reason why UNDP might be holding on to the audit report is to hide the mess that has been created by one of their own.

“Actually, the plan all along was that they would set-up the VPN in the court as per the request by Suleman but allow Jaisi to access it remotely and change whatever he had to. Unfortunately, they were dealt an underhand blow when Suleman asked the court to disconnect the connection so that the server could not be accessed remotely. That was the killer blow,” said the source.

Th source further challenged Nyasa Times that MEC’s IT director Chisi has no clear understanding of how the RMS works.

“The RMS is purely Jaisi’s work. He is the RMS man. And he has been the one running the show as the ghost user. If you do not believe me, let’s wait and see how Chisi will perform during his testimony,” he said.