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IEC claims inexperienced workers could have contributed to problems at voting stations
The IEC said it had hired unemployed youth as part of efforts to elleviate poverty and unemployment in the country
Journalists and party officials monitor results as they are updated in the IEC national results operations centre as vote counting continues. Picture: EPA-EFE/KIM LUDBROOK
The IEC has blamed the glitches experienced during voting on a number of factors, including inexperienced young people who were employed by the commission.
Reasons for long queues
There had been complaints from various parts of the country about long queues, dysfunctional scanners, and the conduct of IEC staff, which led many to question if the staff was adequately trained.
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The IEC’s Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo, however, on Thursday said staff had received enough training, which lasted over four days.
He said the employment of inexperienced young people “impaired” the quality of the process slightly.
“Hence our position has always been in the management echelon of the voting stations’ experienced staff, people who had done things and so on, and supplement that with maybe people who have been unemployed,” Mamabolo said.
Mamabolo said the commission had contributed to job creation through making work opportunities available to South Africans around this time.
Checking of election results
Meanwhile, Mamabolo said three audit firms had been appointed to ensure quality checks on the results which have been slowly trickling in since the early hours of Thursday.
“They are looking at the result slip from the voting station against what is captured in the system and they check if there are discrepancies and indeed if there are no discrepancies each auditor has a unique code which they input into the system confirming that’s the result,” he said.
IEC commissioner Mosotho Moepya said political parties have expressed that they are anxious and want the results of the elections to come out timeously.
“We are not looking at who said what and who is doing what, we are looking at let’s focus on this task, let’s get it done in a manner that will provide everyone an opportunity to deal with a complete picture. At the moment we are trying to deal with a picture that is half baked,” he said.
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