Why should voters roll be kept secret ?

The WeekendPost newspaper of 27 September 2014 carries a report headlined "IEC on high alert over rigging claims". The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) spokesperson, Mr. Osupile Maroba is reported to have "assured to [sic] the public at large that no one besides IEC has access to voters roll and that ...".

I am not a lawyer, therefore for all I know there may be some law, or even the constitution itself, which empowers the IEC to hide the voters roll from the voters themselves. But would such a law, if indeed it exists, make sense ?

When I registered to vote, all the information that I was asked to supply is on my National Identity document (Omang) that the law requires me to have on my person EVERYWHERE I AM IN THE COUNTRY. To this information the recording clerk added my postal address and the name of the Polling station where I was registering.

All the above information about me is public information, the release of which does not endanger public security in any way whatsoever. The information is ALL that my individual record on the voters roll should contain, and the voters roll is just a collection of many similar individual records. Why then should the voters roll be kept a secret ?

In my view transparency in the voting process would be best served by the IEC publishing the voters roll online and (transparently) editing it until the cut-off date just before the elections. If by so doing, the IEC would be contravening any law, then I challenge all political formations to tell us, the voters, what changes they will make to such a law in the event that they win the 2014 general elections.