Tanzania prepares permanent voters' register

Ansbert Ngurumo, March 31, 2003

Dar es Salaam -Tanzania will soon have a permanent
voters' register, which may be used in the country's
next general election in 2005.

The Director of Elections of the country's National
Electoral Commission (NEC), Rajab Kiravu, said in Dar
es Salaam this week that the register would be ready by November
2004.

According to him, Tanzania's move to have a permanent
voters' register is part of the East African country's
lessons learnt from neighbouring countries of Malawi,
Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South
Africa.

According to NEC's timetable, the scanning and
analysis of the (register's) data would be completed
between January and April 2004.

Kiravu said NEC would issue a voters' register draft
between May and June the same year. The draft would
then be sent to stakeholders for necessary corrections
before a final draft be issued between September
and October 2004.

Commenting, a lawyer with NEC, Abraham Senguji, said
the move would, among other things, save money spent
on registration exercises every five years.

The Tanzanian government has been spending a lot of
money on registration exercises during general
election as indicated by statistics of the prevous two
elections - 1995 and 2000.

Senguji said that during the 1995 general elections,
NEC spent Tsh 10,027,377,884 on registration, being
25.99 percent of the total budget.

In 2000 general elections, he said, of the total
budget amounting to Tsh 39,893,379,900 registration
alone took Tsh 10,271,435,374, being 25.75 percent.

ends