HOME Affairs and Cultural Heritage Deputy Minister Ruth Maboyi has implored citizens, particularly those in remote areas to take advantage of the civil registration programmes being rolled out by the Government and acquire the necessary primary and secondary identification documents.
Last year, the Civil Registry Department conducted a national mobile registration exercise which started on April 1 and ended on September 30. The blitz mainly focused on the issuance of births and deaths certificates and national identity documents.
Government was responding to delays caused by the outbreak of Covid-19 that delayed the issuing of critical documents thereby creating a backlog.
President Mnangagwa earlier in the year had 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.
In an interview, Deputy Minister Maboyi who is also MP for Beitbridge West said the Government is also opening up passport processing offices countrywide to promote safe migration.
“As a people-oriented Government we are aware of the challenges people faced in accessing birth certificates and national identification documents, which is why we continually carry out mobile registration exercises,” she said.
“We have realised that some people still don’t have these documents and hence we continue to encourage them to utilise civil registry offices dotted across the country. It is important that our citizens have a seamless access to such important documents”.
Deputy Minister Maboyi said primary documents are critical during voter registration and voting exercise as well as in terms of resource allocations since they provide a guideline in terms of population distribution.
“In some instances, the unavailability of birth certificates is affecting the transition of children from primary to secondary levels of education,” she said.
The Deputy Minister said a birth certificate is a prerequisite for one to acquire secondary documents including a national ID or passport or any other travel document.
“At the same time we want to encourage those wishing to engage in cross border travel to get documents, especially people from Beitbridge where we have opened a passport processing office,” said the Deputy Minister.
She said it was unnecessary for people to engage in unsafe migration methods when the Government had opened more passport offices where we are efficiently processing new applications.
“Illegal migration is not only a crime, but dangerous to people’s lives. The Government had made great strides in attending to challenges around the acquisition of primary and secondary documents by Zimbabweans,” said Deputy Minister Maboyi. – The Chronicle
