2 November 2007
Maputo — The Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the Mozambican civil service, has confirmed that all the computers used by the 3,242 voter registration brigades stopped working on 23 October.
The STAE press officer, Lucas Jose, told AIM on Friday that this was due to a "programming mistake" made by the South African company that provided the computers.
"It was a mistake made when the programme was installed in South Africa. It wasn't deliberate", said Jose. The voter registration began on 24 September and is due to end on 22 November - but the South African company confused the dates, and so the computers believed the exercise ended on 22 October.
The programming was a security measure, intended to ensure that no brigade could go on registering voters after 22 November. This sensible precaution was ruined when the South Africans programmed the wrong date.
Jose said that when the problem was detected, the supplier quickly mobilised its technical staff to reprogramme the computers. He claimed that the work was quick, because the company has staff on hand in all the provinces to deal with computer problems, and the registration resumed later that day.
However, it was quite impossible to reach all the registration brigades in the space of a day. Even in Maputo city, the place of easiest access, there were brigades who were unable to continue their work for more than 24 hours, as journalists could witness.
Elsewhere the paralysis was considerably longer. On Thursday, Radio Mozambique reported that in the southern province of Inhambane the registration had been held up for three days everywhere except in the provincial capital and the adjoining city of Maxixe.
Jose said he did not know about the Inhambane problem, and claimed it must have been an isolated case. Jose was unable to tell AIM how many technical staff are available on the ground to cope with computer problems.
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