By Brighton Muronzereyi
THE Civil Registry Department is pushing for its employees to wear uniforms as a way to curb corruption across all its offices.
Registrar general Henry Machiri told the Daily News yesterday that they were receiving disturbing reports from the public being duped of their hard-earned cash.
“The department wishes to provide uniforms to members of staff and name tags for easy identification and guard against malpractices and impersonation by criminals and touts. The move will also go a long way in complementing our rebranding efforts.
“If you compare civil registry with the police and the immigration and from afar you quickly identify them but, in our case, we cannot be smarter than the tout and he can lie to unsuspecting members of the public that I am the head of this office and what do you want me to do for you.
“So, there is a need for us to have uniforms so that we eliminate corrupt elements at our officers and also impersonation of our officers by some unscrupulous public and the department has a staff establishment of over 2 500 members,” Machiri said.
This comes as the department submitted a budget bid for $1,7 billion but was allocated $203 million.
Machiri recently told Parliament that his department required more funding to ensure that it registers more people in the second voters’ mobile blitz next year.
“The department submitted a bid for mobile registration of over $29 billion and nothing was allocated at all and all the people turning 18 years old especially in the remote areas will be left unregistered and will not be able to register to vote.
“The just ended mobile registration for 2022 has an obligation of $15 billion which can no longer have corresponding budget funding as the year draws close to an end. The department urgently needs legislative lobbying in order to set-off allowances for volunteers that went on episodes of mobilising people to register for identification particulars and this will also prepare for the next mobile registration episode for the ensuing year,” he said.
“It is our hope and prayer that the treasury provides the department the required resources to enable it to carry out its mandate to deliver efficient and effective services to the citizens of Zimbabwe,” Machiri added.