MWARO March 25th (ABP) – The Director of Population at the Ministry of Interior, Community Development and Public Security, Mr. Jean Ndayitwayeko, accompanied by the adviser in charge of legal affairs in Mwaro province (center-west of Burundi ), held on Tuesday, March 22 at the headquarters, an exchange and awareness meeting for communal advisors responsible for political, administrative, legal and social issues and civil status agents on the legal framework, techniques for filling in civil status documents and the new report template.
According to the adviser in charge of legal affairs, Mr. Donatien Nimpagaritse, this initiative of the Ministry of the Interior was necessary. He said that a registered person is in relation with his/her country and when there is a shortcoming in the civil status service, it is bad luck for a Burundian citizen to benefit from his/her rights as provided for by law. This service is part of the life of the population.
In his presentation, the population director recalled articles of the penal code punishing a civil status agent accused of fraud and the fines imposed. He said that the communal advisors in charge of political, administrative, legal and social issues do not have the right to celebrate marriages in the absence of the administrators. If they do, it’s against the law because someone can come and claim they didn’t do the wedding. But it is normal when the technical adviser in charge of social affairs is delegated by the administrator.
As this activity is done throughout the country, Mr. Ndayitwayeko said he noticed that there are communal administrations which do not have legal texts, those which have them but which do not exploit them and even which do not know how to exploit them. He asked the civil registrars in place to do everything possible so that the inhabitants understand the advantage of the civil status, not to authorize a foreign person to exploit the communal registers themselves because he/she can damage or remove papers if he/she is not in good faith, he recommended.