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Harare Bureau
THE Registrar General of Voters Mr Tobaiwa Mudede yesterday defended the adoption of the district based voter registration exercise which started yesterday, saying Treasury had not provided adequate funding to carry out a ward-based exercise as required by the law.
Mr Mudede was speaking before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs, where he said efforts to get enough money from Treasury had proved fruitless.
“The ward based exercise is impossible not because of anything, but shortage of money,” he said. “We have been fighting to get the money.
“Because we were given money at the last minute, we have had to categorise. We calculated what we would need for the ward based exercise and we had $104 million. We calculated with ZEC on what would be needed if it was done on a constituency basis and it was $94,5 million, while the district based exercise came to $33,3 million.”
Mr Mudede has since dispatched four teams per district to carry out the registration and inspection of the voters roll exercises that began yesterday.
The RG’s office received $4 million during the exercise that was held in May instead of $8 million and for the current exercise it received $4,4 million, with a balance of $5 million.
Mr Mudede said he was confident that they would cover the whole country and register every person intending to vote in the harmonised elections expected before or on July 31.
He said aliens would be registered if they brought documentation showing they were born in the country.
Those who took citizenship of other countries, but now want to restore their Zimbabwean citizenship had to get resumption of residence from the immigration department by filling a restoration form, said Mr Mudede.
“Restoration (of citizenship) is there, but one has to follow procedures,” he said. “The first port of call is the immigration department. Without that residence status the hands of the registrar general are tied.”
Mr Mudede denied allegations that MDC-T supporters were being removed from the voters roll.
The mobile voter registration and inspection of the voters roll started smoothly in Harare yesterday.
In Chitungwiza, registration started at Huruyadzo shopping centre with teams also expected to move to other centres.
Harare and Chitungwiza have a combined 44 centres.
There was a huge turnout at Mai Musodzi Hall in Mbare where one of the four mobile centres would be operational for the next three days before moving to Stodart Hall.
But there was a low turn out at Cranborne Boys High School, with an official saying they expected numbers to increase today.
The mobile voter registration centres would be open between 7am and 7pm.
The 30-day ward based mobile voter registration provided for by the Sixth Schedule Part 3 Section 6(3) of the new Constitution would run until July 9.
In Beitbridge, scores turned up to register at Beitbridge district offices, with four teams dispatched to service the district at 60 registration centres.
The mobile registration teams started their operations in Beitbridge West constituency where some people raised concern over the limited time they were allocated in the first phase.
A heavy presence of voter educators was also noted in most centres around Beitbridge district yesterday.
Zanu-PF Matabeleland South deputy chairperson Cde Rabelani Choeni welcomed the second phase of the mobile voters’ registration process.
“From what we are getting, most of the people in the rural areas are aware of the mobile voter registration dates and centres,” he said.
In Masvingo, the programme started at 7am at Runyararo Primary School where long queues formed in the morning.
The queues became shorter during the day, but picked up ahead of closure at 7pm.
The majority of those who flocked to Runyararo primary school were first time voters.
Most registration centres in Mashonaland West registered a steady flow of people with most of them coming to register for the first time.
Some people who were not eligible to vote because they were regarded as aliens by the Lancaster House constitution were able to change their status and register.
In Kariba, some people who had both parents with alien status were being turned away, while those with one Zimbabwean parent were registered to vote.
There was also a marked increase in the number of people who were changing their wards either because they were lodgers or because some aspiring candidates were influencing them so that they boost their chances of being elected.
In Manicaland, the mobile voter registration and inspection of the voters’ roll started in all the 29 centres without any challenges.
Manicaland provincial registrar Ms Joyce Munamati confirmed the development and said everything was going according to plan
Online Reporter