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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
VETERANS of the liberation struggle in Matabeleland North are in a last minute rush to beat today’s registration deadline, amid concerns about poor communication network in the province.

Government came up with an exercise to register war collaborators, recruitees, ex-detainees and war veterans as plans are underway to roll-out economic empowerment projects for them.

The exercise, which seeks to register all those that were not registered all along, was opened on June 17 and today is the last day for registration.

Everyone who registered will be vetted.

Matabeleland North War Veterans Association chair Cde Sonny Mguni who is also Zanu-PF Bubi legislator said mobile network and transmission challenges in most parts of the province affected the registration exercise.

He said as a result many were making a last-minute rush to beat the deadline after getting wind that the exercise was about to close.

“Everyone, who is not registered, be it war collaborators, recruitees, ex-detainees and war veterans is being registered because some were missed on previous processes for various reasons. You would notice that few war veterans and ex-detainees are registering now because a majority were covered in previous years.

“The process started on June 17. We had deployed teams to wards but the challenge is that information flow is not smooth in rural areas because of various reasons including network and broadcasting transmission challenges. So we thought we had finished but we are getting more calls and inquiries from people who are saying they didn’t know about the process hence we are going back to the same wards,” said Cde Mguni.

He said the exercise seeks to produce a database for use by Government.

Recruitees, those who were in camps soon after being recruited when cease fire was announced, were once documented under a programme funded by United Nations but the data had not been updated over the years.

Some villagers in Ndlovu outside Victoria Falls recently complained to the Zanu-PF Hwange District Co-ordinating Committee leadership saying the registration was being done in urban areas when the biggest number of targeted groups are in rural areas.

They implored authorities to decentralise the process to villages as people are hamstrung by effects of Covid-19 to travel to town or faraway places to register. — @ncubeleon.