admin
Leonard Ncube-Victoria Falls Reporter
More than three million identity documents such as birth and death certificates, and IDs have been issued under the Government’s mobile registration exercise that officially ended last Friday.
The Civil Registry Department was on a national crusade to provide citizens with national documents, which are critical in the enjoyment of their rights.
It started in April and ran until September 30.
The registry department had been operating every day including weekends and holidays.
The outreach programme was partly prompted by the fact that during the height of Covid-19 pandemic, the department was not issuing national documents resulting in a backlog.
To ensure that members of the public access national documents, President Mnangagwa earlier this year instructed the registry department to relax conditions that were restricting some citizens from obtaining birth certificates, IDs and even death certificates for their loved ones.
Mostly, distance to the nearest registry office especially in rural areas, as well as absence of birth records for children born outside the country made it difficult to access birth certificates.
In an interview in Victoria Falls, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Mr Aaron Nhepera, said the exercise will not be extended unless if the final report shows need.
“The ministry through the Civil Registry Department wishes to inform the nation that the national registration, which commenced on the 1st of April will be ending on the 30 of September,” he said.
“At the beginning of the exercise we had targeted to issue at least two million documents by the end of the programme and we are pleased to advise the nation that as at 22 September 2022, a total of 3 103 485 documents had been issued, that’s surpassing the planned target by over one million documents,” said Mr Nhepera.
The breakdown of the documents include 1 758 322 birth certificates, 1 300 573 national identity cards and 44 590 death certificates.
Mr Nhepera said the ministry will only be able to provide the updated statistics later. He said due to the last minutes rush to meet the deadline, it was observed that most of the mobile centres were overwhelmed with clients wishing to acquire the documents.
“In this regard our teams on the ground are working flat out to ensure that every client is attended to. We will be reviewing the situation as we have a full picture of what we managed to achieve during the period,” said Mr Nhepera.
“If there is need for another exercise, we will do exactly that but at the moment we are not thinking in terms of extending.”
Members of the public are, however, advised that they can still be able to acquire these documents at static registry offices throughout the country.
Mr Nhepera said information obtaining on the ground pointed to the fact that the main reason particularly in rural areas could be the absence of certain primary documents such as birth certificates that enable people to register particularly for IDs or passports because of inaccessibility in some cases, of our registry centres.
He said the blitz helped the situation to a greater extent. Government is working on opening registry offices closer to the people.
Online Reporter