The Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Pereira Silima
The Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Pereira Silima told the National Assembly that soon the government will bring to the House certain law amendments aimed at providing such rights to inmates.
Mr Silima was responding to a supplementary question from Mkiwa Kimwanga (Special Seats-CUF) who wanted to know what the government was doing to allow prisoners to vote in general elections like other prisoner populations in the region.
In countries like Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho prisoners were exercising their democratic rights to vote, with exception of those on death row and those sentenced to life imprisonment.
In neighouring Kenya, prisoners were offered opportunity to give their views on constitutional reforms. “How comes prisoners in Tanzania are ignored in the voting process?” wondered Ms Kimwanga.
But this is not the first time such statements are made without action to that effect. In 2010 prior to the general elections, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) said it was working together with the prisons department on modalities that will see prisoners take part in future general elections.
The key obstacle that was and still remains is that under the country’s current electoral law, prisoners sentenced to more than six months, those serving life imprisonment and those sentenced to death are barred from voting in general elections.
It is on this basis that the deputy minister told the House that such laws should be amended to allow prisoners to vote. “It is my plea to fellow members of Parliament that when such amendments are brought in the House we should all support the measures,” said the deputy minister.
The MP in her main question asked the government to explain plans to help prisoners when their prison terms ends. She said the government needs to set funds aside to help released inmates start a new life.
“Given that the aim is to correct the culprits and equip them with new skills in life, don’t you think there is need to empower them with funds that allow them to start another life outside prison walls?” she asked.
The deputy minister responded that the government currently gives them some amount of money though quite minimal.
He said the Prison Department is charged with the responsibility to keep the inmates and correct them through recreational activities. The inmates acquire training in accordance with the national vocational training curriculum.
“The aim is to ensure the inmates become good citizens who can employ themselves after release from prison,” he said.
The government’s resolve comes on the backdrop of the announcement by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) that it plans to re-register all eligible voters in the country through Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) technology in order to address challenges of using an Optical Mark Recognition system. Through the BVR technology biological information or behaviours will be collected and stored in a database for identification.
NEC Chairman retired Justice Damian Lubuva told journalists in Dar es Salaam that the new technology will help to address challenges such as double registration, identifying voters during elections and transferring voter information from one place to another especially when a person has shifted from where he/she was registered.
Lubuva said the exercise is scheduled to begin between August and September, this year, adding that a total of 298bn/- is expected to be spent on the “All voters in the permanent register will be re-registered but the exercise will also include the registration new eligible voters,” he said.
However, the NEC boss said that under the new system, all the registered voters shall be provided with new identity cards rendering the current ones invalid.
He said the Commission is working hard to ensure that the registration is completed in time to allow eligible citizens have IDs intended to be used in a referendum to promulgate a new constitution and the next general elections.
The commission has already conducted verification of registration centres which include villages and streets wards, having increased from 24,919 centres to 40,015 in the country and now probably in prisons also.
For his part NEC Director of Elections Julius Malaba said under the BVR every eligible citizen shall be provided with a hard plastic identification card and the number on it shall be permanent and unique for the respective voter.
Opposition parties have been pressing NEC to upgrade the permanent voter register because there were millions of qualified Tanzanians who have not been registered.
According to their research more than 5.3 million people cannot vote because the register has not been updated since 2010.
The permanent voters’ register was introduced in 2004 with the use of the Optical Mark Recognition which involved the use of Polaroid camera.
At the time, biological data included passport size photos and signatures. Thumb prints were added when a digital registration kit was used during its updating in 2009.
For the second time the book was updated in 2009/2010 to register new eligible voters for the 2010 general election.
According to section 15(5) of the National Elections Act of 2010, NEC is required to update the permanent voters’ registration book twice after every general election.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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