Maputo — This week's issue of the independent weekly "Savana" carried some truly shocking news - "Spectre of Fraud" shrieked the paper's front page, alleging that the company hired by the National Elections Commission (CNE) to produce the software to be used in vote tabulation in this month's general elections "legally does not exist".

The story is, however, completely untrue. It took AIM just a few minutes on the phone to check with the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the executive body of the CNE, which insisted that the company hired, Labsoft Limitada, is a properly registered Mozambican company, with Mozambican shareholders.

STAE supplied AIM with photocopies of the documents which prove this. One of these is the definitive certificate issued by the Legal Entities Registry Office, which is run by the Ministry of Justice.

This document gives the company's name and address (in the southern city of Matola), and the date it was set up, 14 May 2008. The company was registered at this office on 24 June 2008, with the registration number 100059797.

Based on that registration, Labsoft then acquired an authorisation to exercise commercial activity from the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This authorisation, with the number 245-10-01-PS-08, was issued on 31 July 2008, by the Maputo Provincial Director of Industry and Trade, Fanieta Manjate.

The Labsoft statutes were published in the official gazette, the "Boletim da Republica", in no. 25 dated 24 June 2008. The statutes state that the company has share capital of 40,000 meticais (1,455 US dollars, at current exchange rates), subscribed by two shareholders, Mauro Rodrigues Conceicao da Costa, and Penicela Pedro Vasco, with 50 per cent each.

Somehow "Savana" was unable to obtain any of these documents, and so it insists that the company "does not exist". The paper says it spoke to the STAE press attaché, Lucas Jose, who was unable to provide information about Labsoft. AIM, however, had no difficult in talking to the STAE general director, Felisberto Naife, who immediately supplied the information we requested.

"Savana" also played the rather juvenile trick of trying to register a company called "Lab Soft Lda" in the name of one of its reporters - and it obtained a certificate reserving this name from the Legal Entities Registry Office. All this shows is that the Registry Office is poorly organised - it says nothing about the integrity of STAE or the legality of LabSoft (which is registered as one word, and not two, as given in the "Savana" article).

An entire "Savana" editorial rails against the "ghost company". Once again it insists that, legally, "LabSoft" does not exist, and even accuses it of not paying its taxes.

"Savana" is the oldest established private weekly in Mozambique, and has built up a reputation for careful and accurate reporting. Usually its journalism is of a much higher standard than that of any other paper in the country. This week's uncharacteristic blunder, however, fits into a pattern of hostility towards the electoral bodies.

When the National Elections Commission (CNE) rejected the nomination papers of several extra-parliamentary parties and, in particular, excluded the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) from nine of the 13 constituencies, "Savana" carried the one word front page headline "Pyromania!".

When the MDM claimed that its nomination papers were all in order and must have been stolen inside the CNE, "Savana" accepted the MDM's assertions in another one word headline that read "Swindle!"

"Savana" was among those media that peddled the conspiracy theory that the ruling Frelimo Party and the main opposition force Renamo were conspiring together against the MDM. This unlikely coalition was even baptized "Frenamo" and is said to be working through organisation such as the CNE.

Now with the unsubstantiated front page claim that the "Spectre of fraud" is hanging over elections that are less than a week away, "Savana" has scaled the heights of irresponsible misreporting, and risks severe damage to its hard won reputation as a paper that tries to tell the truth.