Tanzania’s state-owned National Electoral Commission (NEC) will soon embark on an exercise to update its biometric voter registrar (BVR) in which about four million new voters will be registered, a senior official told the National Assembly on Thursday.

Anthony Mavunde, the Deputy Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Employment, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, said the new voters will be registered before the 2020 general elections.

Mavunde was responding to a question posed by Special Seats Member of Parliament, Cecilia Paresso, who wanted to know when the government intended to start updating the electronic voter register.

Paresso wanted to know the measures the government was taking to find solutions to the many challenges that emerged during registration of voters in previous years.

According to Paresso, some of the BVR machines were inefficient and some cameras did not function properly, resulting in long queues at registration centres.

Mavunde said the law required NEC to update the voter register two times before the general elections.

"We are now working to improve our systems to facilitate access to voters and simplify the registration process,” said the official.

Tanzania conducted its last general elections on October 25, 2015, when according to the national electoral body, about 23.7 million voters were registered.

Xinhua