Govt urged to capacitate Registry Department

GOVERNMENT has been urged to adequately fund the ongoing national mobile registration blitz following reports that the Registry Department is failing to issue identity documents (IDs) in some districts due to a shortage of materials, including cameras.

The Registry Department started a mobile registration on April 1 which ends on September 30.

MPs, who spoke to NewsDay, said citizens were struggling to get IDs.

Mkoba MP Amos Chibaya (Citizens Coalition for Change) said the mobile voter registration blitz in some parts of Midlands had faced a lot of challenges.

"As I was doing a survey, I discovered that there are no cameras that enable people to get IDs. What they are only issuing are birth certificates," Chibaya said.

"The Office of the Registrar must make sure that it equips teams on ground to address that issue. They should also increase the number of people who are being served with IDs, 20 people per day is not enough."

MP for Mbizo Settlement Chikwinya (CCC) weighed in, calling for increased awareness campaigns on the registration blitz.

"The registration blitz that is currently going on could have been better if there had been enough publicity accessible to people. More practically, I would urge the Home Affairs ministry to partner with the local authority to go into the communities and announce the centres that are currently hosting the mobile registration process," Chikwinya said.

Home Affairs ministry spokesperson Francis Mupazviriho said he was not aware that the voter registration exercise was being hampered by lack of materials.

"I'm not aware of those reports. Maybe kindly check with the provincial registrar for Midlands province," Mupazviriho said.

This comes after the government announced that it had scrapped fees for the documents ahead of the 2023 general elections. Government plans to issue over two million birth certificates and IDs during the blitz.