Daloa, 20 August 2009.... The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Côte d'Ivoire, Y.J. Choi, started the third leg of his tour of the interior of the country on Thursday.

In Daloa, Mr. Choi visited a coordination centre blocked by identification agents from the National Office of Identification (ONI), the National Commission for the Supervision of Identification (CNSI), the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) and the National Institute of Statistics (INS). According to the agents, the issue of salary arrears concerns all of the national institutions involved in identification as well as the local CEI commissioners. They carried placards with the grievances and staged a sit in front of the centre.

Faced with this situation, the identification technicians are now waiting for things to go back to normal before continue the processing of data.

Thus far, 194 140 forms have been archived and are awaiting digitalisation once the work resumes.

At the end of a tour of the centre, Mr. Choi said he had taken note of the situation and would raise it with the relevant authorities once he returns to Abidjan.

During his mission, the Special Representative will visit more coordination centres and some of the 1000 microprojects financed by UNOCI.

In Bouaké and Séguéla, Mr Choi visited cantonment sites which are scheduled to accommodate ex-combatants of the Armed Forces of the Forces Nouvelles (FAFN), who are Volunteers for the New Army (VAN). In this regard, he announced that 500 millions FCFA had been mobilised from the basket fund, managed by the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) for rehabilitation of the sites in Bouaké, Korhogo, Man and Séguéla.