DR SITUMBEKO Musokotwane has made troubling observations on the 2020 National Registration Card issuance exercise in which the registration office was extremely efficient in certain regions and poor in others.
A fortnight ago, home affairs minister Stephen Kampyongo updated the nation in a statement in Parliament on the nationwide effort to provide National Registration Cards (NRCs) to youths that have attained qualifying age as well as to adults that have lost their cards.
According to the minister, in Luapula, the department targeted to issue NRCs to 100,000 citizens but ended up issuing 181,000 (181 per cent performance); Northern 171,800 NRCs were issued against 102,000 target; 202,758 were issued in Central Province against a target of 140,000; 107,813 were issued in North Western against 80,000 target; and 106,128 were issued in Muchinga against 96,000 target.
On the Copperbelt, 250,072 NRCs were issued against 270,000 target; Eastern 188,661 issued against 210,000 target; Southern 143,244 were issued against 160,000 target; Lusaka had 189,900 against 240,000 target; and Western had 51,557 being issued against a 100,000 target.
But Dr Musokotwane, a former finance minister, noted that possessing an NRC was critical for every Zambian citizen because it was the prime national identification document.
“Without one, a citizen will not even be permitted to obtain a voter’s card, which means one will not be eligible to vote in the forthcoming 2021 general elections,” he said yesterday. “What is immediately clear is that there is enormous variation in performance.”
He said the “big gap” in performance across the provinces for an exercise that was being managed by the national government was very troubling and the leadership of the country and all stakeholders ought to take keen interest in the matter and demand answers.
“The first question is: on what basis were the provincial targets for NRCs established? The question is relevant because baseless targets can lead to variations in performance for issuing NRCs. For example, if the target for Luapula at 100,000 persons was an underestimate because on the ground there were more youths who had attained the age for obtaining NRCs then of course the outcome would look an over performance only because the target was understated,” he said.
“Targets for issuance of new NRCs and for that matter even voters’ cards were in the past informed by the information obtained from the national census. Normally the census is undertaken after every 10 years. For example, there should have been a census undertaken this year (2020) after the last one undertaken in 2010.”
Dr Musokowane noted that it had been explained that there was no money for the 2020 census, so it has not been done.
He said had the census been conducted, good estimates of the number of new NRCs and voters’ cards, ward by ward, constituency by constituency, district by district, province by province would have been available.
“For election years, in-between censuses when none is however undertaken (e.g. 2016), statisticians are still able to make good projections on the information regarding the number of youths who will require NRCs. It is therefore expected that the provincial targets for NRCs in 2020 had some credible basis,” Dr Musokotwane said. “But, was this so in practice? The government needs to come out clearly and explain this matter. Assuming that there was a rational approach to setting the provincial targets for NRCs, it means each target, plus minus a moderate amount, expressed the maximum number of NRCs to be issued in that province. That being the case, why is there such a big variation in the number of NRCs actually issued compared to the target?”
Dr Musokotwane noted that in some provinces, the number of NRCs had gone well above target while in some, they are well below the target.
“Why?” he asked. “Let us the examine the extreme cases again. Luapula Province registered 181,041 NRCs when statistical experts projected that only up to 100,000 people would need NRCs. This is nearly double the number of NRCs projected. Where then did a huge number of 81,000 extra people in Luapula Province come from because they should not be there if the projections were done properly?”
He said similar questions might be raised for the Western Province where less than 52,000 were issued with NRCs against a 100,000 target.
“48 per cent of the targeted people did not receive NRCs. What explains this serious variance? Where did the rest of the people go? Or perhaps more appropriately, why did the officers who were assigned to provide NRCs to these people do such a poor job?” Dr Musokotwane asked. “Given the strong variation in the performance of issuing NRCs, it is important that government and other stakeholders take keen interest in what has transpired. How come, in a country governed by one central authority, the national registration was too efficient in one corner of the country and terribly inefficient in the other corner? How was personnel and equipment deployment undertaken across the country? How much time and other resources were deployed in different places? How was deployment undertaken taking into account peculiarities of different places such as the logistical challenges of reaching different places?”
Dr Musokotwane questioned the standard set at national level for minimum acceptable levels of NRC issuance and how this now sits against the actual results observed.
“Most importantly and now that we know that certain areas were disadvantaged, what is being done to rectify the situation? In the case of Liuwa Constituency that I represent, the whole ward of Libonda was largely left out from the process because the registration officers only visited one centre although they had given notice that they would come to the other centres as well,” he said. “Other MPs in the Western [Province] and other provinces that voted for the UPND in 2016 have also reported that one or even up to four wards were left out in the NRC issuance. People eagerly waited for the registration officers in vain.
It is very important that this glaring inequity in handling an issue of extreme national importance be resolved quickly.”