PRETORIA – Monday, 1st September, 2014 – THE Zambian High Commission in South Africa has embarked on a vigorous citizen’s registration exercise in order to take stock of all Zambians living in South Africa and other countries of extra accreditation.
Zambia’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Muyeba Chikonde has said that the exercise was in line with one of the important assignments given to him by President Sata when he was appointed. He said he was tasked to get to know each one of the Zambians by name, get to know the families, where they resided and what they were doing in the countries falling under the Mission’s representation.
“You will agree with me that this is not an easy task. However, it is one of our major mandates to account for our nationals resident in any of the countries to which we are accredited,” Mr. Chikonde said.
He announced this to hundreds of Zambians at the Zambian cultural dance and family fun day in Johannesburg on Saturday night.
Mr. Chikonde said the Mission has created an online registration facility under the ‘Student and Citizen Registration’ section of the website, whose address is www.zambiapretoria.net.
He said registration will help the Mission identify the relevant skills and expertise in the diasporas that could be marshaled when need arose. He assured that information collected will be strictly confidential and only be used for the development of a database to assist the Zambian Government with relevant information concerning its nationals.
“It is our responsibility as officers employed under this Mission to look into the affairs of all Zambians resident in these countries. Also, we all know that it is not a secret that a number of senior officials serving in Government today have been called to duty from the diasporas. Additionally, the database will also help the Mission account for all students at different levels across South Africa and the countries of extra accreditation.”
The Mission has also introduced a Facebook Page, ‘Zambian High Commission’ as part of efforts to step-up its communications outreach.
Mr. Chikonde said the Mission decided to embrace the technology because this was one of the effective ways through which to reach as many people as possible, and also for the fact that Facebook has become an intricate part of people’s lives and an effective tool for interaction.
He called for responsible use of the platform if positive benefits were to be derived.
Zambia’s High Commission in Pretoria is also accredited to the Kingdom of Lesotho and the Republic of Madagascar.
Mr. Chikonde said that even as the Mission was going online, it still wanted to maintain physical contact with all the Zambians and encouraged everyone to feel free to visit the High Commission as it had an open door policy.
Issued by:
Nicky Shabolyo
PRESS SECRETARY
HIGH COMMISSION OF ZAMBIA IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mobile: 00 27 810027548 Email: press@zambiapretoria.net; nshabolyo@gmail.com