Aronda warns ID project staff against arrogance

By Dennis Ojwee

Internal affairs minister, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima has promised to drop some ID project staff who are rude to the people going to register.

He said as much as there has been little time to induct the staff into the ID project exercises, they should act professionally and within the national guidelines expected.

Aronda was addressing security officers comprising of the Uganda Police, Uganda Prisons, UPDF, District Internal Security Officers, Regional Internal Security Officers (RISOs) and intelligence officers at all levels.

Aronda warned local leaders against frustrating ID registration processes.

“The exercise is becoming unpopular because of the costs of documents involved. People should not be punished because of the complications in some documents. All Ugandans must be allowed to go and freely and register timely without being misled or frustrated by some confused people. The ID Registration project is a must for all Ugandans and whoever tries to frustrate the process shall be dealt with by the law in this country,” Aronda emphasized.

Aronda said the registration and identification systems will make it very easy and quick to trace and apprehend criminals in the country. He compared the exercise with the ones already done in the US.

“Our universities are nationally planned, but regionally utilized. I have not come here to say we are going to chase away Congolese, South Sudanese or the likes from Uganda, no. But we need to give our natural citizens first priority to benefit from government resources meant for them through properly registering them”, Aronda added.

“People are wondering since 50 years of independence, there are still ghosts in our national payroll. I think counting of teachers is still going on and after this exercise, it will be very easy to wipe the issues of having ghost teachers or civil servants from the government payroll,” Aronda said.

He said the National IDs will help to check the security systems in the country because monitoring movements into and outside the country will be easier.