Government has expressed disappointed with the pace at which the national card registration and voter’s cards registration were being conducted in Nyimba District.
Information and Broadcasting Deputy Minister Forrie Tembo says the pace at which the registration exercise is being conducted in the district was worrying.
He revealed that only 2, 234 people have obtained NRCs in the category of the first registration while in the category of changing, lost and damaged cards, 1, 244 have so far been recorded since the
commencement of the exercise.
Mr, Tembo, whoHe said this when he inspected several registration centres in the District. He observed that so far Nyimba District has been rated the lowest in terms of the figures captured since exercise began.
He added that at the rate the exercise was going it will be difficult to meet the targeted 15,000 voters.
T he slow pace is due to lack of publicity of the exercise as well as proper coordination between officers issuing National Registration Cards and those issuing Voters’ Cards, he said.
Mr. Tembo observed that there were 16 teams of officers from ECZ against 4 teams of officers issuing NRCs operating in different areas adding that most of the people are only obtaining NRCs without registering as voters.
The Minister wondered why officers from National Registration Office
did not follow the deployment pattern done by ECZ crew, so as to cut down on long distances covered by people from one centre to the other to either obtain an NRC or a Voter’s Card.
” Time is running out and that most of the people will soon be busy with field work especially those in rural areas and it may not be possible for them to be willing to go back to the registration centres once the exercise comes to an end, ” he said.
And commenting on why ZANIS was not been engage to publicize the registration exercise, the deputy Minister said ECZ should revisit the decision and consider to engaging the department for its expertise considering the serious nature of the assignment.
’’ I do not understand why ECZ omitted the component of publicity through the department of ZANIS when the country is undertaking an important exercise,’’ he said.
Mr. Tembo said the exercise cannot be completed without publicity adding that the low turnout in the registration process is testimony of lack of publicity.
And some people interviewed at Lupala Primary School told ZANIS that
there is need to harmonise the whole process by making sure that the two groups are found at one point as doing so will encourage more people to register
Why complainung Hon minister when u were on the round table discussion on modality to be employed for both exercises,u decided to sideline Northwestern with early issuance of Nrcs but we’re getting both using initiatives
Why complainung Hon minister when u were on the round table discussion on modality to be employed for both exercises,u decided to sideline Northwestern with early issuance of Nrcs but we’re getting both using initiatives,let ECZ extend voter registration frm 14 days earlier set to 30 days in three provinces that will conduct mobile issuance of Nrcs in Dec_2015