Since the estimated municipal electorate is just short of 3.5 million, this means that so far, with the registration period half way through, STAE has only registered 35.6 per cent of the target.
Only in three provinces (Gaza and Inhambane in the south, and Tete in the west) have over 50 per cent of the municipal electorate registered – 54.7 per cent in Gaza and Tete and 50.3 per cent in Inhambane.
The lowest figures are in Nampula and Zambezia provinces, where so far only 25 per cent of the municipal electorate has registered.
Addressing a Maputo press conference, STAE general director Felisberto Naife said STAE would step up its supervision of the registration brigades, and boost the equipment they are using, in an attempt to improve coverage.
Ten of the towns where elections will be held have been newly elevated to municipal status. Here registration only began on 20 June (compared with 25 May for the 43 existing municipalities).
The new municipalities have an estimated electorate of 98,906, and so far 22,569 have registered – which is 22.82 per cent of the target
Naife said that one of the problems plaguing the registration brigades is lack of electricity, Most brigades are operating in schools and, in principle, schools in urban areas should have electricity. However the electricity company, EDM, has cut off some schools because their electricity bills have not been paid.
To try to overcome this difficulty, STAE has been buying electricity from EDM. “We’re paying for electricity in all the schools”, said Naife, “but there are schools which have huge debts to EDM, and when STAE tries to pay, we reach the end of the day and the school is once again without power”.
But there are also recurrent problems with the computers and printers imported by the consortium which won the tender for supplying electoral materials, consisting of the Mozambican company Artes Grafica, which is part of the Academica group, in partnership with the South African firm Lithotech.
Thus in the central city of Chimoio, registration remains very slow, thanks to computer breakdowns, slow printers and poor training, reports Thursday’s issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin”, produced by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa) and CIP (Centre for Public Integrity).
In Chimoio’s Herois Mocambicanos neighbourhood, the registration system did not recognise fingerprints, a Bulletin correspondent reported. The solution found by the registration brigade, in posts where this happened, was to unplug the machine. Slowness in printing the voter cards means that many fewer voters than hoped can be registered in a day. Not surprisingly, some people simply give up and go home.
Likewise in Lichinga, capital of the northern province of Niassa. Posts are registering only 30 people per day, half of those expected, the bulletin says, and registration computers are still having trouble recognising fingerprints and printing voter's cards.
To provide electricity some posts in outlying neighbourhoods have rechargeable batteries, but these do not last all day “and the dozen generators are only functioning part of the time”.
Post published in: Africa News