A group of dejected youths, some of whom have been there since 6am, wait with frustration evidently growing high. They told The Zimbabwean that the pace at which the registration process is taking place was enough to kill their interest in voting. Officials are not corporative and rarely entertain questions. They just say: “ask your peers in the queue”.
“The process is very slow and the officials doing the registration process seem to lack passion for their job. The situation is the same for those applying for identity cards and birth certificates. The process of registering to vote is not being treated as important as it should be,” said Harrison Mashoko (23) from Glen View.
Some youths said they had failed to register to vote for several days due to the long queues and the slow pace at which the process is going on.
“This is my third day here and I am beginning to lose hope that I will ever register. The responsible authorities need to make sure the process is monitored so that these officials do their job otherwise the way they are operating will turn away a lot of prospective voters,” said Misheck Sunguro (30) from Glen Norah.
To make matters worse, the frustrated youths said that some people with “connections to the registering officers are getting special treatment and are not having to queue”.
“The other problem here is that some people are just coming from nowhere and skipping the queue because they have connections with officials here. It is so unfair for some of us who would have come here in the early hours in the hope that we will be served quickly. Imagine you come here in the early morning hours but someone who comes at mid-day gets served ahead of you,” said Mavis Mukarati (27) from Mufakose.
Another youth who was waiting to register at Market Square said he suspected corrupt activities by the officers from the Registrar General’s Department as being behind their long wait in the queues as people who would have forked out some money “are served well on time”.
“Some people have resorted to bribing the officials as they cannot afford to continue waiting in the ques. This has led to more delays as the officials will slow down the process in an effort to induce you to paying bribes so that you get served quickly,” said Nakai Pfugari (28) from Avondale.
Post published in: News