Suburban
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
THE mobile registration exercise by the Registrar’s Office has come as good news not only for those intending to acquire identity documents in Ward 16 but for ratepayers as well as Mabelreign District Office is being renovated for use as a registration centre next month.
The RG’s Office will be issuing national identity cards to citizens who do not have the documents or have lost the old ones and need to replace them.
In a statement, Ward 16 Councillor Denford Ngadziore said the mobile registration for national identity cards is expected to take place from September 6 to 15.
“Together with the acting DO Mrs Gambiza and deputy DO Mrs Gora, we have already instructed that renovations be done to the boardroom to be used by the RG’s mobile team,” he said.
Cllr Ngadziore urged residents without national identification documents to acquire them during the period when the RG’s Office team is in the area.
In June Parliament heard that the mobile registration exercise was progressing smoothly with at least one million citizens having acquired birth certificates and national identity documents during the ongoing blitz.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe said this while responding to questions in the Senate during the question and answer session.
“As we speak, the process is ongoing; officers are on the ground in all the rural areas. I may want to inform the august House that on the 30th of May, the number of people who had acquired national registration documents exceeded 508 000 and those who acquired birth certificates were 549 000, including such documents as death certificates which are also being acquired there.
“The programme which was launched by His Excellency the President is moving smoothly.
The programme is ongoing until September. We hope that by the time we reach September, everyone will have acquired registration documents and birth certificates to those eligible to receive such documents,” he said.
The Mobile Registration Exercise which began on April 1, 2022 and runs until September 30th, 2022 will be mainly focusing on issuance of birth and death certificates and national identity documents.
Meanwhile, the Government is installing closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) at all civil registry offices where it is establishing electronic passport biometric enrolment centres, as it moves to curb corruption in the department, which has become synonymous with the vice.
Biometrics is the process by which a person’s unique physical and other traits such as iris or fingerprints are recorded and detected by an electric device or system as a means of confirming identity.
Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Mr Aaron Nhepera told New Ziana in an interview that the surveillance equipment had since been installed in Harare, Bulawayo and other centres where E-passport offices had been opened.
CCTV is a video system that consists of strategically placed video cameras around an area that records footage, and is then transmitted to a display monitor for real-time viewing as well as footage playback.
“We have managed to do Harare, Bulawayo and Lupane, Last week we were in Murehwa and Chitungwiza and we will be moving to other provinces soon,” he said.
Mr Nhepera said in Harare, CCTVs had been installed at the new Civil Registry building where most activities have been moved from the old Makombe Building.
He said more bio-enrolment centres would be established throughout the country as the government moved to achieve its goal of a digital economy. Surveys show that video monitoring can reduce certain types of crime with the College of Policing suggesting that it was “associated with a statistically significant decrease in crime”. — Additional reporting by New Ziana.
