Malawi Electoral Commission Briefs President on Biometric Voter Registration

Malawi Electoral Commission MEC has said registration of voters in strategic places by National Registration Bureau NRB who did not register in the mass registration for national ids has brought a financial implication of 600 million kwacha.

Chairperson of MEC made the revelation when she was demonstrating the biometric voter registration to president Mutharika at Sanjika palace in Blantyre.

Justice Dr Jane Ansa said the commission would have loved to have NRB in all the centres to operate side by side with voter registration but the budget would have gone up to 900 million kwacha.

“At the time of the budget formulation this factor was not envisaged as they thought that everyone would have been registered by NRB,” said Ansa

She reiterated that the commission has received 1499 biometric registration kits from NRB therefore it will not purchase the hand held devices which were planned to be used for capturing registrants’ details.