Mozambique Political Process Bulletin 41 – 24 July 2009 (1)

Equipment failures cause major registration problems

Widespread problems with registration are reported by our correspondents throughout the country. By last weekend, registration had still not started in some places. Election officials blame outside contractors, plus their own delayed planning and poor conservation of computer equipment.
Registration is done with a neat system which fits in a briefcase. It has a camera and fingerprint reader, computer for data input (now being called the “móbil ID”), and a printer to produce voters cards with picture, fingerprint, voters number, and other details. The card is then sealed in plastic. But one or another part of the system collapsed in many places – computers, batteries and generators did not work, and the plastic to seal the cards was not delivered.
João Leopoldo da Costa, president of the National Elections Commission (CNE), stresses that the CNE expected to register fewer than 500,000 people, and thus the six week registration period should provide sufficient time, even if registration brigades were unable to work for some periods. But this ignores the reality that where people walked a long distance to reach a registration post, only to find it not operating, they are unlikely to return.
Registration started on 15 June and ends Wednesday 29 July.

CNE & contractors share the blame

Failures by Mozambican contractors, old equipment, late planning by STAE, and improper storage of computer systems combined to create the registration problems, claim election officials.
The system was used for the registration campaigns in 2007 and 2008, in dusty and hot conditions, which meant some equipment was already in poor condition. Speaking to diplomats, CNE President João Leopoldo admitted that the equipment had been badly stored, according to Notícias (22 July). In an interview with the Bulletin, operations manager Mário Ernesto added that because of municipal elections, officials did not have time to think about registration until January, which did not leave enough time.
Escopil Internacional has had the technical assistance contract since 2007, with the support of a South Africa company, Face Technologies. Escopil has its own technicians in the provinces and has trained STAE technicians in the districts, Ernesto said. Escopil and Face are also involved in the Mozambican driving license and motor vehicle registration systems.
Escopil checked and approved some of the equipment, but Ernesto admits that because of the late start, Escopil did not have time to check all of the registration computers in the provinces. But it soon discovered problems with the batteries. This is not surprising. Laptop computer batteries rarely have a guarantee of more than one year, and if the computers are in storage for long periods, as was the case with the registration computers, then the batteries need special treatment, including periodic recharging. This was probably not done, and it seems unrealistic to have expected the batteries to work this year.
Escopil said it would take three months to obtain the batteries, but, Ernesto admits, by that time only two months was available. It was also decided to buy 1000 new generators to charge the batteries of registration teams who were not near an electricity supply. That contract was put out to tender, and won by a Mozambican firm, Hidro-máquinas. But it had only supplied 400 by the time the CNE was forced to cancel the contract.
In addition, there were software problems. Ernesto said that the software had been rewritten this year. Dr Leopoldo told the donors that one new problem was that sometimes if incorrect data was entered, the computer locked, and only Escopil staff had the password to unlock the computer.
Ernesto argues that the worst problems were only in the first two weeks, but as the adjoining article shows, our correspondents found that serious problems are continuing.

To be continued