This morning at 9:00, re-registration started today at over 60 centers countrywide. When we toured a few in the city we found people already lined up at some centers, like Wesley Lower school in Albert, and Grace Primary in Mesop, while a center like Trinity Methodist in Caribbean Shores had hardly anyone, and St. Mary's in Fort George had only seen two re-registrants since morning.
It's a slow start but they the time the exercise finishes in September - the elections and boundaries office hopes to re-register about two hundred thousand electors.
On Friday, the Chief Elections Officer told us that they are focussed on making the process as service oriented as possible:..
Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer
"You may find lines when you go to the registration centers. We want to ensure that the process is free and that's its fast. So we need to ensure that these person are adequately trained in terms of utilizing the system, how to take the photographs and all those things, so that the lines move much faster and so that the public do not get frustrated, because we are not here to frustrate anybody. We are here to ensure that there is a smooth process and to give persons the opportunity to come out and get registered."
"This exercise, it starts from the 1st July. We have already did our notice to encourage persons to apply up to the 30th September. So every who applies between the months of July and September - all applications that have been processed up to the 30th September, in the month of October - closer to the ending of the month then we will have a revision list that persons can view. That is what we call the new register. We will be sharing the information that we received with the political parties on a monthly basis and if we have mass turn out, quite possibly that it will be every two weeks, every week, depending on the turnouts."
"So that has been agreed and when it comes to observing, even the verification, the political parties have representation at the registration centers even when the information from vital statistic unit and from immigration department comes and we have to send those to verify, the political parties will have scrutineers here at the central office to observe that process. So the card will be issued for all persons until the end of this year. Because remember it's a process. So we have to ensure that all investigations have been carried out before we could even issue a card. So no identification card will be issued prior to December of this year."
"A budget of 8 million dollars was approved to us. It's a bit tight as we know. Because people might say oh 8 million is a lot. But I will tell you for an exercise of this magnitude it's not much. But we are working with what it is that we have and doing the best with the resources that we have."
You can find a full list of re-registration centers at 7Newsbelize.com
Centers countrywide are opened from 9:00 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening on every weekday and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Visits to remote villages will be carried out between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
Email
Print