Mudede challenged over certificates

The survey said the centralization of the birth registration was a major setback as the marginalized communities could not afford to travel to towns for the service. The survey recommended the authorization of chiefs, local school heads and district hospitals by the government to give birth certificates to newly born babies.

Minister Makone said in an interview in Harare at the weekend that Mudede was arrogant by dismissing the survey and challenged him to investigate its authenticity.

“As the responsible Ministry we are going to get to the bottom of the matter and collect evidence substantiating the issue of birth certificates in the country. This is not new to me and I need to engage the government and get a clear understanding of the issuance of birth certificates.

“As you know I am still new in the Ministry and still undergoing an orientation process. I have, however, requested that the Registrar-General take me through the entire registration process. I think the issue of giving a birth certificate to a person should not be all that difficult.

“This issue also affects women, because our law does not allow a single mother to get a birth certificate for her child in the absence of the father, so it is a constitutional issue which needs to be urgently addressed,” she said

UNICEF chief of communications, Micaela de Sousa, said her organization was worried by the percentage of children who did not have birth certificates in the country. She said UNICEF was going to engage the government and together map the way forward.

“Ideas are coming up in order not to leave this responsibility to one ministry but we know this is to be done at a policy level. We are also assisting in the resource mobilization so that the government is capacitated in this respect,” she said.

Micaela said it was regrettable to note that the most affected were the

orphaned children, whose parents had died of HIV and AIDS related diseases.

Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede on Friday accused UNICEF and the Multiple Indicator Monitoring Survey of forwarding the donor agenda.

“This document is regretted by the Registrar General department unreservedly. Why go for a survey when you can go for the actual data on the ground. We have that information but they went for secondary data when primary information is there. Maybe this was done to justify the donor funding they received,” he said in an interview.

Thousands of rural Zimbabwean children have failed to access education as a result of birth certificate problems.