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Uganda's Electoral Commission admits; Faulty machines, delaying voters verification.

29 January 2025

By, Isaac senabulya





Deputy Attorney General Jackson Kafuuzi has admitted that during the ongoing Voters Verification exercise by the Electoral Commission, there have been some technical glitches reported with the machines being used, attributing this to the old age of the equipment bought in 2015.


Kafuuzi was updating parliament about the ongoing voter verification exercise. “It is true that some technical problems (faulty machines) have been reported in some stations. The equipment being used was first procured for the 2014/2015 mass enrolment (registration) exercise, under the National Security Information System (NSIS) Project, the predecessor of NIRA. This explains the reported cases of breakdowns. Our teams have been on standby to respond to any reported malfunction,” noted Kafuuzi.


"My observation was that it was one old machine that was being used, all the Parish electoral officers seated, waiting for the same machine. There was no register that was delivered to the polling station for me to verify my name. as a district in this country without electricity, it was relying on a battery and the battery was running out every two hours and required to be charged. The feedback from the community was; we needed more machines, this exercise really needed to be in the Parish as planned- George Bokha (Obongi County).


Electronic equipment is assigned years in which to serve and I have heard him talk about those procured in 2014, so surely, these must have become obsolete by this time and therefore, we don’t expect good results from these machines. What happens to the collaboration between Ministries? We have just finished the national census, what happens to the equipment that was being used by UBOs? Why can’t it be deployed for this purpose?- Basil Bataringaya (Kashari North).


What about the students who have already gone back to school, how will they update? What happens to those areas where we have sung for years, especially my constituency where electricity has remained a thorn, a sore and it hasn’t been extended? How do we continue to update the register? Given that the machines are very few, as he has said, they expected 5000, they received only 2000 (2703), therefore, people have to commute long distances to go for this registration, and an average person takes 10minutes and I anticipate that the time assigned will not be enough to complete this exercise- Basil Bataringaya (Kashari North)


Yesterday as I was returning from the Constituency, I passed by at Mbarara district headquarters after seeing so many people crowded and I wanted to know what was happening. I witnessed myself that very many people were gathered there and not worked on and not because the people working there didn’t want but the process is very slow. The girl working on the machine told me, they can only work on 50 people per day- Margaret Ayebare (Mbarara DWR).


It isn’t true that each Parish in Mukono has been given a kit and then we have even been given more. The fact of the matter is, each Sub-County in Mukono has been given 1 kit. LCI are charging people Shs5000 for the transfer letters but from colleagues I hear, they are charging up to Shs30,000. An election isn’t rigged on the day it is cast, elections are rigged through the full process- Betty Nabooze (Mukono Municipality).

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