Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Tanzania: Electoral body uncovers 16,000 double registration

ABOUT 16,000 people have registered themselves twice in the Permanent Voter Register (PVR) through the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system, it has been detected.

Speaking during the ‘Jambo Tanzania’ programme aired by Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), National Electoral Commission (NEC) Director for Information and Communication Technology, Dr Sisti Chriati, said the suspects were easily identified as they were registered in an electronic system.

He said no one was allowed to be registered more than once and legal measures will be taken against those who will be identified in accordance with the laws governing general elections and related process.

Dr Chriati stated in the programme that NEC had also brought to Dar es Salaam about 4,000 BVR kits to curb the shortage of registration equipment that has been facing different parts of the city to ensure every eligible citizen is registered.

“These kits will be supplied to those centres facing a shortage, especially to those areas which are highly populated,” he said, adding that all those who will turn out will be registered before the deadline.

According to him, the voter register will start to be displayed from tomorrow in all areas where the exercise has taken place to allow verification of voter information.

About 2.9 million eligible voters are expected to turn out for the exercise in Dar es Salaam. Some 1.2 million voters are expected to register in Kinondoni Municipality in addition to 811,000 and 896,142 others in Ilala and Temeke municipalities respectively.

Meanwhile, a mini-survey conducted by this newspaper observed long queues of people who thronged the registration centres, as most of them admitted that they have been attending to registration centres for some days with no success.

The survey established that centres that are located in remote areas are faced by serious challenges such as inadequate BVR kits, shortage of manpower and registration forms Among them are Mbagala Kuu, Meo Mtoni Kijichi, Mbagala Mission- Kwa Bruda and Kijichi A as well as Kijichi B Primary School centres at Mbagala area in Temeke Municipality.

At Meo Mtoni Kijichi and Mbagala kuu centres, long queues of people could be seen with some aspiring voters expressing despair whether they would be registered at all, considering the capacity of the BVR kits to cope with the huge turnout.

There seemed no preferential treatment for people with special needs and physical status as pregnant women, the elderly and those with physical disabilities.

“I don’t know when I will be registered…I have been coming to this centre since Thursday last week. Unfortunately, I have not yet been served,” complained Ms Fatina Ngole, a resident of Kijichi who is pregnant.

She said the process has been prolonged by favouritism done by some of local officials, lack of expertise among operators and technical glitches on registration kits.

At Mbagala Mission centre, the absence of registration forms caused misunderstanding between registration seekers and officials. “All this is caused by shortage of BVR kits.

There are about 6,730 people who are eligible to be registered in my area, but they depend on two machines, which in fact are not enough,” said Mr Bakari Masasu, a local government officer for Mbagala Mission area.

He said they have requested more kits from the ward office but, unfortunately, until yesterday they were yet to be supplied with the requested equipment.

Source: www.dailynews.co.tz/

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