-Kitwe District Registration Officer Ali Simwinga has said the ongoing voter registration exercise was progressing well and about 1, 200 people have registered to date in the district.
Mr Simwinga said in an interview that among the registered people 1,000 were new voter applicants at various registration centres.
Kitwe district was targeting to register about 157,000 people within 90 days of the registration period.
Mr Simwinga who is also Kitwe town clerk said the registration exercise was facing a challenge with people who have lost their voters cards because they were expected to obtain a Police report before they could be registered.
He said affected people had registered a complaint that Police officers at various Police stations were demanding between K30 000 and K50 000 instead of the required K22, 000 for obtaining a report, a situation he noted would impact on the outcome of the exercise if not addressed by relevant authorities.
Mr Simwinga however, appealed to Kitwe residents to turn out enmass to register within the stipulated time of 90 days.
The Voters Registration exercise commenced last week across the country and ends in September this year with ECZ targeting to capture 2.5 million voters in readiness for next year’s general elections.
ZANIS
This whole Voter Registration exercise gives more questions than answers, why not Re-register all of us again with new voters cards coz i foresee rigging maneuvers here e.g I get my police report that i lost my voters card in Livingstone and i relocate to Lusaka and register as a voter, i would have 2 voters cards one in Livingstone and 1 in lusaka and knowing our technology katwishi fye, i would vote in livingstone in the morning travel to Lusaka and vote in the evening.
So my first question is is the System at ECZ able to detect double registration if so what is being done to curb such vises and what punishment is there at hand to would offenders?