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Zimbabwe Electoral Commission yesterday conducted a biometric voter registration (BVR) workshop for Matabeleland North Province officials in Bulawayo. This picture shows some of the officials following proceedings

Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
THE mobile biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise will start next month in Matabeleland North with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) saying it wants to complete the process in remote areas before the start of the rainy season.

Speaking on the side-lines of BVR operators’ two-day workshop held in Bulawayo yesterday, Zec Matabeleland North provincial elections officer Mr Mark Ndlovu said they were targeting remote areas first due to fears that they may be inaccessible when it starts raining.

He could not immediately give the actual date when voter registration will start.

“The registration programme is in four phases. We will start the voter registration in Binga and few other wards in Lupane that will be our phase one.

“In each district we are going to be stationed for 16 days before moving to another district,” he said.

“You have to observe that this programme will start towards the rainy season. Hence we are starting in Binga because when the rains start we won’t manage to access some of its areas.”

Mr Ndlovu said 44 supervisors, 16 provincial staff and 14 district staff members and seven district elections officers received training on BVR yesterday.

He said starting from Saturday, they will start training BVR operators and the programme will be done over a period of 14 days.

“We will be training a group of 72 members over nine sessions to complete the programme. The training will start on 16 September ending on October 3. After finishing this programme we will start going to registration centres that’s where we will be operating from,” said Mr Ndlovu.

“Since Zec has introduced biometric voter registration, the importance of this training is to ensure that everyone who is eligible to register will be registered.”

@nqotshili