By Hawa Malishe & Nick Kayange
Zomba, May 11, Mana: National Registration Bureau (NRB) says it will roll out a mandatory registration of all deaths in Zomba District from this week.
The registration would be done in all health facilities and villages as mandated through the National Registration Act.
Speaking during a full council meeting, Deputy Director of National Registration Bureau, Moses Chiwoni, said NRB is mandated to maintain population registers and for the institution to properly maintain that, it needs to register deaths apart from having birth registers.
Chiwoni said among other things, death registration would assist in knowing how many people are dying per day, in which area of the district and what the main cause of deaths is in case of common diseases.
He said by having this data, government would have better knowledge on how many people are alive in general; how to address a problem that is killing many people in an area and also plan for socio-economic development for a particular area.
“We feel it’s time that we should have the death registration. Once implemented, government would have a better understanding of what is killing people and how best to address it,” he said.
Unlike other registration exercises, this will be a mandatory one and anyone who defaults would be punished, according to Chiwoni.
He said by conducting the death registration, government may save money meant for the population and housing census as it will already have data of people alive.
Meanwhile, NRB has appealed to chiefs to take the exercise seriously and make sure deaths are registered and issued with a certificate.
Senior Chief Malemia of the district welcomed the idea, saying by registering deaths, it would assist those in authority in knowing the number of people in a particular area, cause of deaths and where specifically.
“This program will also enable spouses, children and relatives of a deceased person to claim their inheritance and we will know the permanent record of facts of death,” said Malemia.
Councilor for Ulumba Ward, Derick Mbella, said registration of deaths would help in knowing the real population of an area.
Apart from death registration, NRB is also conducting a mandatory birth registration aimed at knowing the actual population of the country.
In related development, NRB) plans to open registration centres in the country’s rural areas to allow people to easily register for the national identity cards as well as renew old ones.
The development comes amid complaints from people who travel long distances to district offices for the service.
The situation has been discouraging many whose identity cards have expired to have them renewed.
In an interview with Malawi News Agency (MANA), NRB Public Relations Officer, Norman Fulatira, said the bureau was fully aware of the challenges people go through when they want to register or renew their national IDs.
He said it was against this background that NRB would open centres in rural communities to bring the service to the people while also fast-tracking the process.
“We are quite sure that by opening centres in the communities, especially in trading centres, people would easily access NRB services of registering or updating their national identity cards,” he said.
However, Fulatira could not disclose when the bureau would rollout the exercise, saying this will depend on availability of funds from the treasury.
“We are in the process of lobbying with the treasury to fund the activity and the sooner treasury releases the funds, the faster will be the implementation of the exercise,” he said.