By KELVIN MUDENDA –

LIVINGSTONE District in Southern Province registered more than 13,000 new voters by the month-end of October this year.
Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Livingstone District assistant registration officer Elister Hazinji said that the district had also recorded a total of 12,592 people who had come forward to replace their voter’s cards and 39 had given notifications.
Ms Hazinji said in an interview that between September 14 and October 27, 2015, Livingstone Constituency had recorded a total of 25,635 for both new registered voters and voter register updates.
“In the just-ended phase, the new registrations were a bit slow and I don’t know the reason I can give because I haven’t really gotten to understand why but in the final phase we have witnessed an influx of people. We have actually been busy and it seems people are realising that time running out,” Ms Hazinji said.
Ms Hazinji said that because of the overwhelming response from the public, her office had requested for an extension but ECZ had not yet responded to the request.
“The appeal for an extension is to accommodate those that delayed in accessing the national registration cards (NRCs) and we want all of them to be captured as we don’t want to leave out anyone.
“We are leaving one station open at the civic centre until next year March and whoever gets an NRC should come to the civic centre, even though we know that those in rural areas might have challenges of transport to get to the centre,” Ms Hazinji said.
She attributed the good response being received from members of the public to the work being done by the voter education facilitators who she said had been doing a commendable job in all the wards and that the impact could be seen on the ground.
Ms Hazinji also refuted claims from some sections of society that the team in Livingstone Constituency had run out of stationary.
During the period under review, New Apostolic Church registration centre in Simoonga Ward recorded the highest number of new registered voters at 1,497.