NEC prolongs days for BVR registration exercise in Dar region

THE National Electoral Commission (NEC) has prolonged the starting day for registration exercises on permanent voter registration book to be carried in Dar es Salaam region from 16 as earlier announced to 22^nd this month, a statement issued yesterday to the media by NEC has said. The statement signed by NEC Chairman retired Judge Damian Lubuva said that, NEC has changed the date following requests by election stakeholders who wanted the days prolonged so as to pave way for people to celebrate the two day Eid-El-Fitry holidays which is expected to be held on dates scheduled to start the exercise. Lub uva said in his statement that, NEC has accepted the election stakeholder’s request and now the registration which is being undertaken for the first time in the country by using the electronically designed Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) machine, for Dar es Salaam region will be climaxed on 31^st this month. In view of this, NEC has underscored the need for this registration process and called on people in the region to emerge for registration at various registration centres which later will be used as polling stations during elections. However, he said the registration to be carried will also involve people residing at Bunju  and Mbweni wards although some of them had been registered before in a pilot project when the BVR machines were introduced in the country in late last year. Tanzania has adopted the biometric registration process which has replaced manual registrations which was being marred with challenges including double registration and missing names. Using some figures shared by NEC and quoted in the media is that up to now NEC has registered over 11 million people in the country against the approximate number of 25 million Tanzanians of voting age basing on 2012 census, with the Dar es Salaam region being the last region where the registration is done.