BY MIRIAM MANGWAYA
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage minister Kazembe Kazembe says there is need to decentralise issuance of birth certificates to avoid long distances travel by villagers to registry offices.
Speaking during the official opening of a civil registry sub-office at Murambinda Growth Point last Friday, Kazembe said birth certificates were a right for every citizen.
Murambinda is the biggest growth point in Manicaland province. People from Murambinda would go to Buhera registry offices to access services, some 20km away prior to the establishment of the sub-office.
Villagers in some remote parts of the district had to travel long distances to get birth certificates and some would even end up living without them.
“In its bid to ensure accessibility of services, the Department of Civil Registry has decentralised issuance of vital civil registration documents to all the 62 administrative districts in the country and 206 sub-offices countrywide. Plans are underway to further decentralise services by establishing more sub-offices to bring services closer to the people,” Kazembe said.
“Mobile registration exercises are being carried out periodically to reach out to remote places which are still far from established registry offices,” he said.
The minister told villagers that obtaining civil registration documents was their basic right so they should not wait for compelling situations for them to acquire them.
