Kasujja’s Computers Can’t Open

By Felix OsikeTHE US$25.7m (sh46.2b) Photographic Voter Registration project has stalled again after local staff who were recently dismissed, went away with the computer passwords.Commissioner Hadija Nassanga Miiro, in a written statement to Parliament dated July 16, said by the time the the Electoral Commission (EC) closed the project on June 30, local staff had manned equipment and software for a month without the consultants.“Unfortunately, all the trained staff were sent away and the project has been closed since July 1 before completion,” said Miiro.She said about 600 local staff who were dismissed all had passwords. “The system is inaccessible without the passwords,” she said.In systems implementation, the key password is limited to only one base administrator at any one time, Miiro said.Miiro has notified President Yoweri Museveni of her intention to resign from the EC on November 15, to pursue further studies. But other sources said her departure was as a result of the dismissal on June 30 of the part-time computer operators in the data processing department.She was reportedly against the sacking because it would cost the government more money to train new staff.The New Vision has learnt that although the photographic voter’s cards for 13 districts had been printed, some of them did not contain the signatures or the thumbprints of the registered voters.Sources said the consultants failed to process the signatures and the thumbprints. The cards, however, bear the photographs of the voters although blurred. Miiro’s response follows a report sent to the MPs probe committee by some data processing specialists who partly handled the project. The committee is investigating causes of election violence and financial mismanagement at the commission.The specialists’ report said the system was not tested and the commission had no trained Information Technology (IT) personnel.Miiro said while it was true that the commission did not have specialised IT staff, they were not necessary for the system design.A facial recognition system adopted by the EC eliminated multiple and child voters from the register in the last elections.Miiro said the Ink Character Recognition (ICR) machine had some shortcomings despite having the best software in the market.She said the problems experienced by the commission with ICR were not technical but administrative. She said the data processing department failed to implement what the consultants had designed.The project has widely been criticised after its cost rose sharply from the estimated US$ 12.7m (22.8b) to sh46b.Under the system, eligible voters were to be issued with plastic voters cards bearing their photos to eliminate multiple registration.Ends