GOVERNMENT has decentralised the issuance of National Registration Cards (NRCs) by creating sub district offices throughout the country.
This is in line with its decentralisation policy aimed at effectively and efficiently providing increased accessibility to services for national registration identity documents.
Home Affairs Deputy Minister, Stephen Kampyongo said Government would soon finalize the amendment of the National Registration Act to facilitate the introduction of the digitized NRC processing.
Mr Kampyongo said this when he officially opened the Chilenje sub district office of the Department of National Registration in Lusaka yesterday.
Mr Kampyongo said the process would culminate into an improved NRC issuance with wider usage that would include digitization of other national registration documents namely birth, marriage, death and adoption records.
Government is this year expected to open three other sub district offices in Lusaka’s Chawama, Matero and Chelstone Townships before the end of the year.
Mr Kampyongo said plans to open sub districts offices were underway in Kitwe and Ndola on the Copperbelt Province in a bid to enable citizen’s access the services.
He said the department of National Registration, Passport and Citizenship had been facing challenges of human resource to meet increased accessibility for national registration identity documents.
He said Government would address the challenges faced by the institution such as lack of automation, technological facilities, and inadequate office infrastructure among others, which contributed to bureaucratic operation processes.
“Inadequacy of office accommodation contributes negatively to the smooth operations of any given institution. My Ministry has embarked on improving office accommodation in the department by constructing and rehabilitating of infrastructure countrywide,” he said.
Registrar General, Mathews Nyirongo said the creation of sub district offices would be done gradually in an effort to decentralize the NRC issuance.
”GOVERNMENT has decentralised the issuance of National Registration Cards (NRCs) by creating sub district offices throughout the country.”
”He said the department of National Registration, Passport and Citizenship had been facing challenges of human resource to meet increased accessibility for national registration identity documents.”
Q?What about the employment freeze ?So the offices will be empty or they will be run by volunteers? OR FIKAISOVA
Naimwe dont parade your ignorance here. Employment freeze does not mean when vacancies fall they cant be filled…nooo. What has been frozen is the massive recruitment of civil servants in all the Ministries. In fact this massive recruitment does not happen every year..it is usually after 2 or so years.
Government at work
There’s no achievement to celebrate here. The Citizens and Registration Office (Home Affairs) is cardinal to the documentation of a country’s citizens, and should have braches everywhere. People need Passports in just the same way as they do NRCs, so why decentralise one thing and not the other? You can have branch offices everywhere to RECEIVE the applications, and REGIONAL offices to SCRUTINISE & APPROVE/DISAPPROVE the applications – Not fyonse ati ku Lusaka… Pension , Ku Lusaka, TV Station, Ku Lusaka, to be employed in government, Ku Lusaka; Ubunga, KuLusaka; everything Ku Lusaka. That’s why we have an embarrassing situation where in a country of almost 14million people only less than 2million go to vote and under 1 million determine the winning party and presidential candidate!!!!
But where is the Deputy Minister in this picture? I only see dancing queens and “kings”
SORRY, one dancing queen
@ Truth Hates creation of new office/brunches isn’t a vacancy. Its not a national wide thing only one is open in lsk and two another two more to open..make accurate announcements mr minister.
This is definitely a welcome move. People should be able to obtain NRCs in their respective localities without having to incur high costs of traveling to provincial capitals to get this done. We should give credit where it is due and criticize when necessary. This is a positive move in my view.
This is just the first step in preparing to rig the elections by creating ghost votes thru the NRC’s. NRC are very important centralisation is ok for one just does it normally once a life time
And when do u intend to decentralize Electoral Commission of Zambia
I’m not sure I understand this move. I got my NRC long time ago on the copperbelt meaning the system was already decentralised so whats the news now? And that picture of those guys dancing up there how does it relate to the story?
The Govt is workng hard 2 bring servces closer 2 the pipo.we must supot it.