By Mustapha Sesay
One of the functions of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) is set to be divulged to another autonomous body by a bill that is soon to go through parliamentary approval.
The bill titled: ‘The national Civil Registration Act 2015’, if passed into law, would empower a centralized body called the National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) to provide a nationally integrated database system about demographic distribution. This will take away from NEC a cardinal responsibility of conducting voter registration. It will limit the Commission to extracting information from a register the NCRA will provide to draw up the voters list.
The bill will sanction NCRA as the primary source of information for data relating to national services to the general public.
“Personal registration data provided by the integrated national [civil registration system (CRS)] shall be the primary authoritative information as against other information systems providing administration services to the population,” section 41 sub-section 3 of the bill reads.
The bill was initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2015 under the leadership of Joseph Bandabla Duada as Minister of Internal Affairs before his sacking this year.
Officials at NEC had earlier expressed worry over losing control in the conduct of public elections. They’d said the bill would “undermined” election processes and that the issue of credibility would be at risk when the bill is enacted into law.
Edmond Sylvester Alpha, Acting Executive Secretary of NEC, argued at a consultative meeting last year that most of the suggestions they made to be included in the bill were skipped, leaving the process less inclusive.
But amazingly, as time progressed, NEC and the Ministry officials have come to terms and appears to have ironed out their differences and both institutions are now on the same page with regards to what was once a controversial bill.
Albert Massaquoi, Director of Media and External Affairs at NEC, told Politico in an interview that although there were and are still series of challenges, they had joined the Ministry to undertake activities that were geared towards awareness raising, and giving the necessary support to NCRA to start the process of nationwide compulsory civil registration.
Massaquoi said it had been a common norm for various government institutions to undertake registration process, thereby costing the government more money. He noted that the single integrated data collection system have worked in other countries in Africa and if implemented here it was bound to reduce the burden on government and other development partners by saving the cost of undertaken numerous registration processes.
He pointed out that the main concern of NEC had been the role of the Minister in the whole process as a political figure, noting that that could have raised the issue of credibility and political interference. But he said that had been resolved with the role of a board introduced as opposed to the minister.
Alfred Palo Contch, the newly appointed Minister of Internal Affairs, has also pinpointed the fact that an integrated registration system would help the government to weed the civil service of those with multiple dates of birth in various institutions.
“There are people in the civil service that carried both their official and real ages who have past retirement age but are yet to retire,” the Minister said.
Foday Kamara, Chief Registrar at the National Registration Secretariat, said multiple registrations of citizens with different institutions was a source of “stress” and could be eliminated with the introduction of the single registration system.
“At the moment, citizens have to register with NASSIT, National Revenue Authority, Birth and Death, Immigration Department, Office of the Administrator General among others. But with the single registration such will be eliminated and citizens would not have to go through so many registration exercises,” he said.
Aaron Ngor Bundu Lahai, Communication Officer at the ministry of Internal Affairs, told Politico that the ‘Compulsory Civil Registration’ exercise slated for this September will target both Sierra Leoneans and non-Sierra Leoneans resident in the country. He added that the multi-purpose National Identity Card will be issued at zero cost to the people.
He said with support from NEC they had already received 800 registration kits and other equipment needed for the process. He pointed out that NEC had also given them the permission to use their 3, 000 registration centres established during the 2012 elections.
He said they have partnered with both political parties and civil society to raise awareness within the Western Area and that they would be going up-country to do same. He said they were in a hurry to do compulsory registration because by January next year NEC would be in need of the information to start their electoral process for the 2018 elections.
In line with current status of the bill, the Communication Officer said it had already been gazetted for a 21-day period which is set to elapse at the end of this week. He added that a pre-legislative hearing is set to commence at the end of the month.
(C) Politico 24/05/16
