06 Feb 2019

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) office in Maun has called on voters to utilise the ongoing supplementary registration exercise to ready for the general elections.

The supplementary registration exercise, which started, in December is expected to end in March.

Principal election officer, Mr Khutsafalo Ralokwae, confirmed in an interview that they were experiencing low turn up of electorates especially in the two constituencies of Ngami and Okavango.However, Mr Ralokwae said they registered good numbers in Maun West and Maun East.

He said 221 people had  registered in Maun East, 248 in Maun West, Okavango 108 while at Ngami they registered 89 people.

In the first registration in August-November 11 last year, Ngami registered 17 446, Okavango 15 752 while Maun East  and West 14 836 and 17 361 respectively.

Mr Ralokwae explained that the ongoing registration exercise was constituency based.

“In this we have polling station in constituencies where people get the basic services.”

In Maun East and West, registration is at Maun IEC office while in Ngami people register at Gumare and in Okavango, registration is in Shakawe.

The principal electoral officer attributed the low turn up to distance citing that people from Somelo were expected to register in Gumare which was more than 200km away.

To address such challenges, he said the office would conduct a series of kgotla meetings in all villages at the same time registering people.

“We are hopeful that our efforts will bear positive fruits and increase the numbers. We will also continue to make public announcement to remind electorates about the ongoing registration,” he added.

Mr Ralokwae said voter trafficking also remained a challenge in the district adding  that it was hard to detect voter trafficking but stated  that they adviced politicians to desist from the practice.

Meanwhile some politicians were not amused with the arrangement by the IEC office as they felt that some changes had to be made to address the current situation whereby people travelled long distances for registration.ENDS