BIG STORY
Gov’t Fixes New ‘Feasible’ Date for Commencement of National IDs Mass Renewal, Enrolment
By Our Reporter
NATIONAL
Government has set another date for what it calls ‘Feasible commencement,’ of Mass Renewal and Enrolment of National IDs.
Speaking during a joint press conference by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and NIRA on Friday, 16th August, 2024, Gen. David Muhoozi Minister of State for Internal Affairs revealed that the feasible date of commencement will be 15th, October, 2024.
Mass National ID Enrolment and Renewal was initially scheduled for July, 2024 with the aim of enrolling 17.2M Ugandans and the National Identity Cards of 15.8M Ugandans.
He also reveals that a Contractor was contracted on July 8th 2024 and that meetings with the contractor began in 17th July 2024.
“From 29th July to date, initiation activities have been taking place. These include: Review of System specifications and Establishing project timelines and aligning supply chain schedules,” Muhoozi says.
He adds that during the period leading up to 15th October 2024, persons aged 16yrs and above, or those who will be 18 years by January 2026, are advised to register and acquire a NIN using the current registration system.
“The working estimate for this category of citizens is within the region of 3M. Within the next 02 months, government will focus on the 16year olds and above, who are not on the register in order to ensure that we live within the 30th November 2024 EC set timeline,” he says.
OTHER PARTS OF THE STATEMENT
This therefore serves to reaffirm that no one will be disenfranchised due to system acquisition related issues. When the new system arrives, we commence with pre- registration online followed by the capturing of biometrics at the Parish level 02-03 weeks after the online pre- registration exercise.
The logic for this is to allow for deployment of the registration kits which will be delivered in batches. The new kit features include: • A portable solar kit. • Additional battery. • Iris scanner. • Secondary display capability.
The samples of this kit will be displayed. Last, regarding the extension of expiring National Identity Cards, as an interim measure in the run up to issuance is new IDs, this is meant to ensure no disruption to service delivery for those card bearers whose IDs may expire within this period.
We also want to assure the public that NIRA is integrated with 90key users/verifiers of NID information.
Therefore, It is possible to verify in real time, the features that are timeless on our NIDs – the biometric data of each individual captured on their cards as well as their names. We should implore these verifiers/ users to verify technologically with NIRA whenever need arises. This also includes border posts being allowed to verify NIR.