SUBMIT IDEAS, ECZ PRODS MWINILUNGA

MWINILUNGA District Electoral Officer Kennedy Kazanda has called on residents to make submissions to the on-going Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) delimitation exercise.

Mr Kazanda, who is council secretary, said delimitation was an important exercise because it was a basis for registration of voters and should be taken seriously.

He said this in a speech read for him by deputy council secretary Sydney Hamooya during the official opening of the ECZ delimitation stakeholders meeting in Mwinilunga yesterday.

Mr Kazanda said ECZ was engaging various stakeholders to ensure everyone was involved in the process.

The process would involve the creation and renaming of constituencies, wards

and polling districts, and establishing new polling stations where necessary.

The exercise has been necessitated by several factors, among them an increase in population, the long distances voters cover to access electoral services, development and new settlement patterns.

Mr Kazanda said the commission would only effect the delimitation of new constituencies and wards after the amendment of the Constitution and after the Ministry of Local Government had issued the statutory intrument to provide for the new wards in accordance with the Local Government Act.

ECZ had been carrying out the delimitation of constituencies, wards and polling districts since July.

It ends in November.

ECZ chairperson Essau Chulu said the exercise which was covering all the provinces and districts countrywide, began on Monday, July 8, 2019.

Mr Justice Chulu said there was a need to realign the boundaries of wards and constituencies that might have been affected by the creation of the new districts as well as adjustment of electoral boundaries to ensure all the new districts had at least one constituency.