busy serving clients and looked overwhelmed by the huge numbers of people awaiting service. In interviews with RGs office’s senior officials in Bindura they noted that budgetary constraints and gross under-funding were the major challenges that negatively affect their efficiency and operations. They also note a dire shortage of staff that has led to service delivery being severely compromised but they added that they were very efficient. In Hurungwe Distrcit 95% (165) of adult respondents alleged that officials in the RGs office in the provinces and districts were very corrupt. It was alleged that those with resources (such as goats and chickens and offered these to RG officials) always got birth certificates, even when they were in the same situation and circumstances as those others that were turned away. The RG officials denied these allegations and stated that people created such allegations. 34% of adult respondents in both Bindura and 53% in Hurungwe Districts noted that they were not sure whether officials in the RGs decentralized offices were busy or not. They noted that they only saw them moving around busily but could not ascertain how truly busy they were. However, the RGs officials counter this saying that obviously when one is not served timeously (as is the case sometimes) the concerned people attributed this to inefficiency. A CPS official argued that if RG’s officials applied the rules rigidly they might become too efficient to a point that they might appear to be inefficient when work becomes stalled by excessive bureaucracy and little discretion where such discretion could have been exercised. 4.10 Mobile Registration 86% of adult respondents in Bindura District and 91% in Hurungwe District revealed that the mobile registrations conducted were very beneficial to those people in far away areas who could not travel to main registration centres. It came out that many people, especially in the farming areas and communal lands, obtained their registration documents during mobile registration exercises. They said that, however, the schedule of registration visits in the centres was not well publicised to ordinary people, especially in remote rural locations and farming areas. The RGs office in Bindura, however, said these events were well publicized through various structures and traditional leaders. From semi-structured interviews many respondents believe that mobile registration has gone a long way in decimating the population of unregistered children in Zimbabwe. However, often the challenge has been that when the mobile registration teams visited, some people cannot articulate what is required for the registration to proceed smoothly. A major process issue raised in the research was that some people, especially witnesses, failed to give what the RGs officials viewed as “correct or genuine responses”, thereby failing register. 4.11 Attitude and behaviour of officials in the RG’s office Birth Registration Research Report/2007 39