System hitch at Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services

Hundreds of clients are stranded at Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) offices across the country due to a system hitch resulting from an abrupt power outage which happened on September 7 2019.
The directorate’s spokesperson, Angellina Makwecha, in an emailed response to a questionnaire on Monday said the blackout caused a sudden shutdown of their servers.
She said the shutdown led to technical problems such that the directorate has, since September 7, been unable to complete clients’ transactions.
“The directorate is experiencing a downtime after our backup power failed to pick when Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi power was interrupted. This mishap happened on September 7 2019 and our technicians have been continuously working on services,” Makwecha said.
She said the problem was not to do with local area network but failure of one server whereby errors are being experienced in system operations.
Makwecha said services such as motor vehicle and driving licence administration had been affected as transactions were being conducted slowly at all its offices in Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Zomba and Blantyre.
One client at Blantyre office, David Esau, complained of the inconvenience the downtime has caused to him, saying he has rescheduled his trip to South Africa while waiting for Services at DRTSS.
Electricity Generation Company Senior Public Relations Officer, Moses Gwaza, last week told the media that the power utility’s greatest challenge was the reduced water flows in the Shire River, which meant reduced generation capacity.
He, assured, however, that the situation would soon be rectified. DRTSS offers services such as motor vehicle administration, driving licence administration, vehicle load control, operator registration, permit authorisation and traffic law enforcement.