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Registrar General Mr Tobaiwa Mudede

The Registrar General’s Office is conducting a national civil registration mop-up exercise for people to acquire identity documents.

The exercise that started on Monday and is scheduled to end on May 16 is being undertaken after the RG’s Office conducted a national mobile registration which was launched in September last year and ended on January 31 this year.

While the RG’s Office’s district and provincial stations across the country are always open to register births, deaths and process other important registrations, the mobile exercise that was undertaken from September and the ongoing mop-up one are meant to facilitate the acquisition of national identity cards for people who can then be able to register as voters as elections approach in the next three to four months.

Registrar General Mr Tobaiwa Mudede said on Tuesday:

“The mop-up vital civil registration exercise has started throughout the whole country at designated centres and static offices. The said mobile registration began on Monday, April 16, 2018, to May 16, 2018. This exercise is an extension of the vital civil mobile registration which commenced last year in September and ended on January 31, 2018. The documents are required to facilitate the registration of voters in preparation for the forthcoming harmonised elections.”

Documents that are obtainable during the current registration programme include national identity cards, birth and death certificates and documentation for citizens by descent (person born outside Zimbabwe one of whose parents is a citizen by birth).

The RG’s Office this week ran advertisements in the national Press showing the centres at which people could go and have the documents they want processed for them for free.

The process underway is a very essential one as it allows citizens to secure documents without which they may not function effectively in life.  Without a birth certificate one will be unable to legally secure a national identity card.  Someone without a birth certificate will not be able go to school and write examinations. A person who does not have a national identity card will face problems securing a decent, formal job and will definitely be unable to operate a bank account in their name. Without a nation identity card, one will be unable to register as a voter for them to play a role in electing their political leaders, thus determine their personal and national destiny.

The importance of birth registration and a national identify card can therefore not be overemphasized. Thus we urge the people across the country to take advantage of the ongoing exercise to make sure that they get the documents.

The good thing about the mop-up exercise is that it is going right down to where the people live. The people do not have to spend much time and money travelling to the permanent centres in their districts to be assisted. We know that some of our people may not have much money to pay for transport to distant places to obtain the important papers. They therefore just live without a birth certificate or national identity. They just live just as anonymous persons, unknown beyond their localities. This is undesirable.

As we have stated earlier, people will not pay any money to have their papers processed which is another plus for the Government’s mop-up registration programme.

Of some concern is that while we have seen advertisements in major national newspapers, we have not seen a much wider public education campaign on other mass communication platforms and in more languages than English for the message to be really accessible to the majority. Also, we don’t know if the word for this important exercise had, before Monday, been communicated to community leaders in rural areas countrywide for them to sensitise their people of the registration exercise.

It is possible; however, that this was done in the five-month programme that ended in January so Mr Mudede and his team decided that such a publicity blitz was unnecessary for a mop-up exercise now underway. We give him and his team the benefit of doubt on that, but we have heard reports that officials from his office who are on the latest assignment are not showing up at the appointed times and places as advertised.

Zanu-PF Midlands Provincial chairperson Cde Mackenzie Ncube said the mobile teams in parts of Gokwe North are not spending the expected four days at some centres but a day or two. This is most unfair for some people who possibly had planned to go to the centres on the third or fourth day. Such people will fail to get the documents not because of their fault, but the RG’s. Mr Mudede is encouraged to adhere to the schedule that is publicly available.