THE Government has started the second phase of the mobile National Registration Card (NRC) issuance exercise, which will cost K22 billion in three provinces, Home Affairs Minister Lameck Mangani has said.
Mr Mangani told a Press briefing in Lusaka yesterday the exercise started yesterday in Northern, Southern and Central provinces.
He said the Government was committed to ensuring that it carried out the exercise in all the nine provinces and allayed some opposition leaders’ assertions that Government was only concentrating on MMD strongholds.
The second phase follows the conclusion of the first one, which started on June 1, 2009 in North-Western, Western and Eastern provinces and cost K20 billion.
“This exercise involves officers going to the remotest areas of the country to issue NRCs to the citizens who are unable to travel to the local district registration offices due to long distances.
“It is important that all eligible citizens who have attained the age of 16 years and above, including all those who need to replace their destroyed, damaged or lost cards report to the nearest registration centres that will be established to register for their NRCs,” he said.
Mr Mangani warned foreign nationals residing in Zambia not to take advantage of the exercise and illegally obtain the green cards.
“Any Zambian who may present or stand in for a foreigner as deponent in order to illegally obtain the green NRCs will be committing an offence for which they will be prosecuted.
“Foreign nationals residing in Zambia are, however, eligible to obtain NRCs other than the green ones. Foreign residents who are from the Commonwealth countries are eligible to obtain pink NRCs and the rest qualify for a blue NRC,” he said. [quote]
Mr Mangani scoffed at some opposition leaders for insinuating that Government was conducting the exercise in areas where the MMD was popular.
He said the NRC issuance was a national programme which was supposed to cater for all areas and it would be naïve for any government to use it to advance the ruling party position saying one could not even tell who would vote for who.
The mobile exercise was aimed at ensuring people in hard-to-reach areas of the country accessed the national identity cards and given more funds and other logistics, the exercise would be implemented simultaneously throughout the country.
He said, for instance, some areas could not be reached during the first phase and now the Government had set aside an extra K300 million for officers to return to the places and issue the cards.
[Times of Zambia]
If the registration officers can go that far to issue these cards, why is it so difficult for them to issue NRCs to Zambians living abroad?
make sure that these reg officers go remote areas of the provinces not just the line of rail and district centers.the rural vote will be crucial in 2011
For sure opposition have very good reasons to worry because the issuance of NRCs started in provinces where MMD got more votes last year. Was it a way of paying them back? This Managani is as useless as his boss
BaMMD don’t nyunya over these NRCs. A tsunami is headed your way, come 2011. Make sure that you improve prisons because that is where most of you will land.
National Registration card issuance is done in phases? Well, well well! I would have thought this should be automatic as soon as one turns 16! Why is this process tied to politics and voter registration? Surely, is it not true that the system is lending itself to vote rigging? I am sorry but I cannot understand the connection! Voter registration should be done per residential address. Government must invest in registration of all its people to a fixed residential address. As for NRC it should be automatic when one turns 16! I do not think there is any Zambian less than 45 years old who does not know their date of birth. They should scrap that line which records village and chief as well. It is colonial and outdated.
Thsi is just another scheme to steal money. How can this excersice cost 22 billion. On what will this money be spent? These theves are at it again.
Zambia rest in piece.
# 6 sport on ,why spend so much cash on silly cards that have no value and lost it’s meaning when they cud buy furniture for schools and clinics .what priorities do our gov follow pliz,very frustrating indeed for our poor nation.i think these chaps have taken us for granted.
i am applying for renewal of my zambian passport from usa
the application was denied because they state that my
nrs number does not match with my name according to
them. FACT NRC ISSUED IN 1968 in choma becomes
manufactured or void HOW COME this is absolutely
nonsence and attorney general should look into this practise
whereby yr submitted documents becomes fraud or forgery.
HOW CAN I VERIFY MY NRC number and name from usa.
yr comments appreciatted.
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