By Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
The Manicaland provincial registry office is not a safe place to store important personal information owing to the dilapidated state of the infrastructure, Registrar-General Mr Clemence Masango has said.
The department has not constructed any permanent buildings to house the registry in years and uses temporary wood cabins for offices.
Mr Masango recently said the state of the structures at the registry was embarrassing and did not reflect the importance of the institution.
“This happens to be the only provincial registry in this state, therefore I call upon the authorities to avail resources for construction of proper structures that are decent, secure and reflect the importance of the institution.
“We are custodians of very important personal data, we store people’s personal information that they leave with us when they apply for various documents and it needs to be kept in a secure place, and this is not one of them,” he said.
Mr Masango said although the registry was in need of urgent attention, Treasury had barred Government departments from embarking on new projects in 2019 due to limited resources.
He, however, expressed hope that the construction of proper offices would be prioritised in future.
“Treasury has said no new projects will be entertained for 2019 and constructing a new structure here would be a new project, so we will not be able to factor it in next year.
“We have quite a number of unfinished projects throughout the country, so Treasury would want to support the completion of the incomplete projects first before we can dig new foundations. That is the fix for this provincial centre,” he said.
“We have land here, but we need funding to construct proper structures, so for 2019 we will not be able to do anything.
“I hope when we go for the 2020 submissions , we will be allowed to at least prioritise this one.”
He said the department would prioritise the completion of five projects that are already under way under next year’s budget allocations. The Herald