Remote Dwellers' Death Registry A Challenge
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday March 11, 2019 12:40
The Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Magang Ngaka Ngaka told Parliament when presenting recurrent and development budget proposals that it ws difficult to reach the areas.
“The national death register stands at 359,131 since inception in 1968 and since April 2018 to date, 15,662 deaths were recorded. Out of these, 7,615 are females and 8,047 are males. My ministry continues to intensify public education on the importance of death registration,” he said.
On issues of the national marriage register, it indicates a total 191,370 marriages registered.
According to the minister, since April 2018 to date 3,746 marriages were registered. However, a total of 155 divorce cases were recorded during the period between April and December 2018. Meanwhile, the minister expressed concern over the failure of some Batswana to collect their identity cards.
“As at February 2019, statistics for uncollected cards stood at 27,228 nationwide. Currently the production of Omang stands at an average of 700 cards per day,” he said.
“My ministry has improved communication on processed Omang cards by sending the short message system (sms) notification once the card is ready for collection. Despite this effort, some Batswana still delay to collect their Omang cards.”
Ngaka said the year 2018 was the 10-year cycle period since the inception of the Omang card, of which the initial cohort that got identity cards in 1998 was due for renewal. He said as a result, the ministry experienced congestion at all civil and national registration offices countrywide and after implementation of mitigation measures, the turnaround time for Omang insurance has improved from eight weeks to a week.
The minister said a total of 1,633,446 people above the age of 16 years were as at February 2019 and out of this number, 873,464 are females and 795,982 are males, and a total of 40,225 new applications for the Omang cards were processed from April 2018 to date.