A southern African partnership between South African-based printing giant Lithotech, information management company iMX and ICL Mozambique has successfully delivered the first African election campaign - planned, managed and implemented in its entirety by regional companies.
The R30 million plus project was initiated in May last year by ICL Mozambique MD, Cerium Ismael, who, together with Lithotech selected MGX Holdings company iMX for its expertise in automated large-volume document scanning and handling.
The iMX and Lithotech team delivered the project spec in a one-week deadline for the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) specified tender, and produce proofs within a week of winning the tender.
"We had just come off the South African voters` roll project when the call came in for the Mozambique census and election tender," says Lithotech market development manager, Ben Sachs. "Having consulted with Leon Theron and his iMX team, we agreed to tackle the project despite the formidable production odds we were likely to face."
The project was further complicated by competition from a British company, which had been active in soliciting similar work in African countries for many years.
"Southern Africa is now on the map as a technological competitor for United Nations and European Union projects previously the domain of larger, more established western companies," says Sachs.
Making a mark
The Mozambique census project, combined with a voter registration project - utilised Optical Mark Recognition (OMR), for data collection using a series of marks on a predefined scanner template - and was considered the most appropriate solution for the project.
The project has been a great success, winning approval from the sponsors at the UNPD and the European Union secretariat that financed the recent successful Presidential and House of Assembly ballot in Mozambique. "We designed and produced a unique form that was printed, perforated and laser imaged for the census and voter registration on A3 sheets," says Sachs. "The OMR form was printed on the right, and was used for census data and voter registration. The left side was populated by standard data fields that could be scanned in and captured using high-speed optical character recognition (OCR) technology from iMX. Further sections for the form were used for the voter registration card.
"Once complete, the OMR forms were moved from Mozambique`s 11 provinces to the capital Maputo, where a team of technicians used US-based Opscan scanners to process the captured data over a three month period," he adds. "OMR data collected in the July census was 100% successful in tabulating voter statistics for the December elections."
Over 100 tons of print and specialised containers for the transport of completed forms were supplied." Sachs says this was a military-style operation to the 11 provinces in Mozambique and was delivered in three weeks.
The main election ballot
Based on the statistics gained from the census and with the issue of voters` registration cards accomplished at the same time, logistics were put in place for the main election held on the 3/4/5 of December 1999. Sachs says it was critical to hold the election at that time, as the authorities feared holding the election in the oncoming rainy season.
The operation was planned and executed by a joint partnership comprising Cerium Ismael, MD of ICL Mozambique and Ben Sachs of Lithotech Ltd. Numerous suppliers from South African Industry were involved in this operation produced in record time of several weeks.
"South African companies have proven themselves not only capable of putting together a pre- and post-election campaign of this magnitude in rural Africa, but has done so at minimal cost with maximum efficiency," says iMX sales and marketing director Leon Theron. "What`s more, we did it with local expertise using local resources and creating hundreds of jobs in the process.
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