Abidjan, 24 August 2009...The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Côte d'Ivoire, Y. J. Choi, on Monday visited the main centre for identification in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Plateau.

Mr. Choi wanted to see what progress had been made in processing data from the identification and voter registration operation at the centre, whose role is to collate data received from smaller centres from all over the country. During the visit, the head of UNOCI concluded that the "work was going well" and encouraged the agents to continue with their work.

The programme director of SAGEM, the technical operator for identification, Fabien Rouaud, highlighted the challenges which he said disrupted the smooth running of the work. "There are internal problems linked to the non payment of agents' salaries and then there are also external problems," he explained. "We are working everywhere to put things in order so we can advance the process in the hope of shortening the time".

The Chief of UNOCI's visit to the main centre in Abidjan comes after his mission to the interior of the country from 18 to 21 August 2009, during which he visited identification coordination centres in Bouaké, Séguéla, Daloa, Issia and San Pedro, to see how well they were functioning.

According Mr. Rouaud, the Abidjan co-ordination centre, which finished the digitalisation of identification data last week, is based within the main site.