National mobile registration exercise extended

The Civil Registry Department will from next Monday send 129 national mobile registration units out again to process and facilitate the issuance of national documents required for voter registration.

The exercise will be conducted countrywide up to July 31 and the department has since published in the media, the places and days where these teams will visit.

Mobile teams will work from 7am to 5pm, during working days, while for static offices they will work from 7am to 7pm.

On weekends and public holidays, the documents will be issued between 7am and 4pm.

The programme is meant to provide citizens with an opportunity to obtain national identity documents so they can register as voters in the upcoming 2023 harmonised elections if they are not already on the voters roll.

The department said the exercise was targeting those who attained 18 years intending to register as voters and eligible voters with lost identity documents which they need to register and need to present at polling stations.

The blitz is also targeting those who are 18 years and above and require both birth certificates and national identity documents, a perennial programme for the department.

"For further information regarding the Mop-up National Mobile Registration Exercise, all members of the public are advised to refer to the information on registration centres and itineraries provided in the schedule (published in the media)," the department said.

Last month, in another move that was meant to swiftly process and facilitate the issuance of national documents required for voter registration, the Civil Registry Department, for nine days increased the daily working times to 12 hours during weekdays and 10 on weekends.

The registration exercise, with a $24 billion budget, was being conducted in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission mobile biometric voter registration blitz ahead of harmonised elections scheduled for this year.

Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe said a total of 129 mobile teams had been deployed across the country in addition to static registry offices.

"A number of teams have been deployed in all provinces: Harare Metropolitan Province 9 teams, Bulawayo Metropolitan 8, Masvingo 24, Mashonaland East 9, Mashonaland West 8, Mashonaland Central 8, Manicaland 10, Matabeleland South 23, Matabeleland North 10 and Midlands 20," he said.

"Each team will be having a different number of people depending on the deployments", he said.

"This is the initial deployment but as we go through the process a lot more deployment will be made."

Minister Kazembe said the deployment was made possible through the support of other Government departments.

"This is to ensure that no place and no one is left behind. Everybody has a right to vote so we are encouraging our people who may have missed the initial blitz to take advantage of this ongoing one," he said.