CHRISTIAN Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) says the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) should enhance the transparency of the voter registration exercise by immediately releasing the procedures that will guide and ensure accessibility to the correctional facilities where registration will take place.

Speaking to journalists during a press briefing in Lusaka, Thursday, CCMG chairperson Fr Cleophas Lungu called on the ECZ to publicly release the voter registration targeted numbers and the number of officers and registration kits deployed to every province to allow stakeholders understand and evaluate the process and rationale.

“Given the announcement that the ECZ made that it will undertake the voter registration of incarcerated individuals during this voter registration exercise, CCMG calls on the ECZ to enhance the transparency of this exercise by immediately releasing the procedures that will guide this exercise and ensuring accessibility to correctional facilities where registration will take place by observers and party representatives. As CCMG, we also call upon the ECZ to publicly release the targets for voter registration and the number of officers and registration kits deployed for every province, district, constituency in order to enhance the transparency of the exercise and allow stakeholders to understand and evaluate the process and rationale,” Fr Lungu said.

He said that CCMG was gravely concerned with the lack of adequate preparation for training of ECZ officers on the importance of observation by duly accredited, non-partisan observers and party representatives.

“While CCMG commends the ECZ for processing accreditation for its observers, we note with grave concern the lack of adequate preparation for and training of ECZ officers, the importance of observation by duly accredited non-partisan observers and party representatives. The ECZ did not publicise the accreditation procedures, thereby creating challenges for organisations seeking to observe the process,” he added.

And Fr Lungu called on the ECZ to immediately deploy additional staff and kits to increase the efficiency of the voter registration exercise.

“CCMG notes, however, that logistical challenges do not appear to have affected significantly one region of the country more than others based on the data from observers on the average number of registrants per centre, per day by province, or the average minutes it took to register a person per province in Phase one. We, therefore, call on the ECZ to immediately deploy additional staff and kits to increase the efficiency of voter registration,” said Fr Lungu.