New system snuffs out multiple marriages

was introduced in February last year following an increase in the number of cases of marriage fraud and had managed to reduce the vice from 20 cases reported so far to zero.

Mr Mudede said this last Friday during a tour of National Registration Bureau in Harare by the Sadc Parliamentary Forum mission, which was in the country to assess the pre-election political environment.

“Since the introduction of the new computerised system we have effectively thwarted cases of marriage fraud, particularly by foreigners from Nigeria and West Africa,” said Mr Mudede. “Cases have declined from 20 we recorded last year to zero to date.”

The RG’s office, he said, would continue working round the clock to improve the new marriage certificate and system.
“We will not sleep because we know that criminals are also working hard to try and outdo us, but we are always ahead of them and we will continue to improve the marriage certificate with more sophisticated features and requirements,” he said. Mr Mudede said this was also the same case with other documents such as passport and the biometric identity cards introduced in 2009.

Government introduced measures to flush out foreigners and unscrupulous locals who were abusing Zimbabwe’s marriage laws in February 2012. The new measures saw the introduction of computerisation and serialised marriage certificates.

This came after several cases of foreigners flouting Zimbabwean laws to regularise their stay in the country by entering into marriages of convenience to acquire residence permits and citizenship in Zimbabwe.

Culprits mostly from Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other countries, were entering into marriages of convenience and marrying more than one wife using different names to secure Zimbabwean citizenship.

The new system compels all foreigners marrying to produce a certificate of no marriage from their country, which will be verified before they are allowed to marry in Zimbabwe.
The RG’s Office keeps all records of all marriages on its computer database, which also has national registration numbers and passport details.