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Registration centres turning down downloaded forms

 

People trying to register in the ongoing national identity cards (ID) exercise continue facing challenges with latest reports indicating that some centres in Blantyre are not accepting forms downloaded from the National Registration Bureau (NRB) website.

NRB and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently said forms can be downloaded from the NRB website to ensure availability as some centres were having inadequate forms.

However, some people who went to some centres in Blantyre on Saturday had a rude awakening when registration officers did not allow them to register using downloaded or photocopied forms, saying they differed with the ones the centres were offering.

People queue at a registration centre in Blantyre

One of the people who went to register in Nkolokoti Township, Gift James, said he was disappointed that he was sent back because he had a downloaded form.

“There are usually long queues here, so I decided to download the form thinking that it was going to save me time. Unfortunately, I have been sent back, which is pathetic,” he said.

But in a telephone interview yesterday, NRB spokesperson Norman Fulatira said he was surprised that people are being sent back with either photocopied or downloaded forms. He said communication was made to the officers to accept the forms since they were being made available online.

“It is something which we did not know is happening. We will follow it up with the centres. There is no specific difference only that those downloaded are printed on normal paper while the other ones are printed separately,” said Fulatira.

In the third phase of the ongoing exercise, registration staff have been deployed to Nsanje, Blantyre, Chikwawa and Mulanje, with the NRB expecting to continue deploying staff to four other districts in the coming two to three weeks. n

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