Zuma wants every South African counted

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma will on Tuesday launch a new campaign that will see every South African citizen registered with the Department of Home Affairs within a year.

President Zuma and Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will unveil the National Population Registration (NPR) campaign in rural Libode in the Eastern Cape.

The campaign centres on a massive public outreach programme to ensure that each citizen, young and old, has been registered on the NPR and has the right documents.

Home Affairs said the objectives of the campaign are to eradicate late registrations of births, to ensure that newborn babies are registered within 30 days of birth as well as to ensure that all South Africans who turn 15 and above receive their Identity Documents (IDs).

"Through this massive registration drive, we aim to reach our ultimate objective - to ensure the integrity of the National Population Register, South Africa's most important database of citizen information."

The department said it hoped the NPR will contain the information of everyone living legally in the country.

Zuma and the Dlamini-Zuma are expected to visit Saint Barnabas Hospital in Libode to view an online registration facility, to observe live online registration processes for birth certificates as well as identity documents.