By Andrew Mkonda

Lilongwe, May 15, Mana: Lilongwe District Council Principal Social Welfare Officer, Sarah Chimodzi has said the district was ready to roll-out the second phase of Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR) exercise.

In an interview on Monday in Lilongwe, she said the exercise that was expected to start on May 20, 2024 and run for 25 days, would cover the five remaining Traditional Authorities (TAs) that were not covered in the first phase that took place in February, 2024.

“We are supposed to reach out to 439,249 households as our target, but we only managed to reach out to 358, 794 due to the vastness of the district, but this time around, we are optimistic that we will cover the remaining 80, 455 households,” Chimodzi she said.

She disclosed that 160 enumerators from 460 enumerators that were recruited in the first phase are expected to be engaged in the exercise and would be covering 25 households per day.

“I am happy that these enumerators gave us the correct data in the first phase that really represented the real status of households on the ground, and we are optimistic that they will continue giving us accurate data in this phase,” she said.

Lilongwe District Council Chairperson, Dan Mtayamanja thanked government for continuing with the exercise in the district for the remaining TAs, saying it would assist in knowing the social economic status of the people in the district.

He said UBR information was very important because it provides the district with consolidated information on the social-economic status of households which would assist in determining people’s opportunity of being in different programmes such as Social Cash Transfer and Climate Smart Public Works Programme.

The remaining TAs in Lilongwe includes Kalolo, Tsabango, Msinde, Kachule, and Kalumba.

A Similar exercise was conducted in Blantyre, Kasungu and Rumphi.