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Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has started recruiting personnel to educate the electorate on the new biometric voting and registration (BVR) system.

In an interview, ZEC chairperson Justice Rita Makarawu said the recruitment was being done at provincial level with a target of at least four officers per ward.

“The officers will be visiting every ward, raising awareness among the electorate about the new BVR system.

“The campaigns are going on, but we are preparing to have a blitz that will go hand-in-hand with voter registration exercise in the next few weeks.
“We have campaigns running on radio and television, but this blitz will reach out to people,” she said. Justice Makarawu could not give the actual number of officers the commission intends to recruit saying the exercise was done at provincial level.

“I do not have the exact figures because the exercise is being done at provincial level, but we are targeting at least four officers per ward which is quite a big number,” she said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of aspiring BVR awareness officers, mainly teachers have been reportedly thronging provincial ZEC offices across the country. The aspiring officers who spoke to The Herald yesterday said they were being turned away by ZEC officers saying they were not recruiting.

“I have been visiting the ZEC offices (Midlands) since Monday, but to no joy. Hundreds of people are being turned away. Officials say they will announce a date when the recruitment will be done,” said Mrs Thombizodwa Nkala who is aspiring to a BVR awareness officer.

ZEC provincial officer for Midlands, Mrs Dorcas Sibanda told The Herald yesterday that they were yet to get communication to start recruiting.

“We know about that exercise, but we are yet to get the go ahead to start the exercise. We will require quite a number here, but I can’t give the actual figures the province would require because we would also need trainers. These trainers will train officers who will be going to the ground so we don’t want to give a distorted number of people we would need for the exercise,” she said.

Midlands has 296 wards.

The Registrar-General’s Department on Tuesday said that it would roll out a three-months national mobile registration exercise issuing machine readable national identity cards in preparation for the voter registration.

The exercise will start on Monday next week. The Registrar-General, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede said the exercise would help aspiring voters to get plastic identity cards and do way with old metal IDs.