Kinshasa, september 8th, 2021 (CPA) – The Joint Commission of Experts on the operations of census and identification of the population received in audience, on Tuesday, by the Prime Minister, Jean Michel Sama Lukonde, presented to the latter his report on voter registration operations and those related to the identification of the population as well as to the census.
The Minister of State, Minister in charge of Planning Christian Mwando Nsimba, who led this joint commission, indicated, at the end of the hearing, that the first operations mentioned will end in May 2023, while the second will end by next year.
This Commission was charged by the Head of Government with studying the practical modalities for carrying out, on the whole, the operations of enrolling voters for 2023 elections and those of identifying the population and its census, in order to minimize their budgetary cost.
The work carried out by these experts made it possible to determine an overall budget of USD 600 million, instead of USD 900 million which would be spent if these operations were organized separately, underlined the Minister of State for Planning.
This will allow on the one hand, he said, to have enlisted to prepare the next elections sufficiently in time, and on the other hand, to have identity cards by May 2023, in more than a planning tool, starting from the control of the number of inhabitants in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that of the social and work structures of the country.
The Prime Minister, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, satisfied with this work, remains more determined to see these operations take place in peace, as desired by the President of the Republic, Felix Tshisekedi, who makes this question of census and identification of the population, one of its priorities.
This mixed Commission is made up of experts from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry in charge of Planning, the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the National Population Identification Office (ONIP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), it is recalled. ACP / JFM