Take advantage of registration exercise to get important documents

The Registrar General’s Department has announced that it is rolling out a three-month national mobile registration exercise for national identity cards, birth and death certificates starting this coming Monday. The Registrar General Mr Tobaiwa Mudede said the exercise was in preparation for voter registration.

He said during the exercise, the metal identity cards will be replaced by machine readable plastic IDs which were introduced in 2010. Mr Mudede said the readable plastic IDs will also be used for biometric voter registration. “The metal identity cards are not biometric yet our system has been biometric since 2010,” said Mr Mudede.

He therefore urged the people to take advantage of the exercise to discard metal identity cards in favour of the machine readable plastic IDs. Mr Mudede said during the registration exercise, people will not only obtain IDs but also correct errors made in the past.

He said no one will be allowed to vote without the new identity documents hence it is important for all citizens to ensure they have the required documents.

This is a very crucial national exercise and we want to believe that adequate resources have been mobilised to enable the department to reach every corner of the country.

According to Mr Mudede, mobile registration centres will open at 7AM and close at 7pm from Monday to Friday and during weekends the centres will open at 7am and close at 4pm. The mobile registration exercise will run until November 30.

There have been reports of thousands of children without birth certificates especially in Matabeleland and some parts of the Midlands province and we want to urge parents or guardians of these children to take advantage of this exercise to obtain the important documents.

Some pupils have been forced to drop out of school because they do not have the birth certificates. Mr Mudede’s department should ensure that the mobile registration centres are as close as possible to the people so that everybody including the aged, is afforded the opportunity to obtain the important documents.

Community leaders should be actively involved in this registration exercise. The village heads, councillors, church leaders, chiefs and other community leaders should assist in mobilising the people to register.

These community leaders should hold meetings and where possible should invite officials from the RG’s office to help explain the importance of this exercise which will enable adult Zimbabweans to exercise their right to vote next year.

The registration exercise, it has to be made clear, will continue even after November 30 at the RG’s offices at provincial, district and sub offices. In the past thousands of people failed to vote because they did not have the required documents.