Govt warns on national IDs

By Joyce Namutebi and Henry Sekanjako

GOVERNMENT has warned people involved in the ongoing national ID registration exercise against demanding money from citizens.

“We have not asked for it. We shall deal with such people,” internal affairs state minister, James Baba warned.

He was responding to queries raised by Members of Parliament after he presented a statement to the House on the ongoing registration exercise of citizens for the purpose of issuing them with national identity cards.

The registration exercise was launched by President Yoweri Museveni and involves registering citizens aged 16 years and above.

Some MPs said their constituents had told them that local councilors (LCs) were asking them for money in order for them to be registered.

“It is deterring many people from going to the centres for registration,” Sarah Lanyero (Lamwo) said Thursday.

Baba appealed to MPs to report such people to the authorities saying demanding money was criminal. He revealed that they are setting up two hotlines before the end of this week for people to report such cases.

He clarified that the ongoing registration exercise is not for registering voters, but citizens for purpose of getting national IDs. He, however, explained that from the data collected the Electoral Commission would draw a register for voters.

‘To ensure that we remain on course, we have set up what we have called a situation room at Kololo.” All problems are reported here, he said.

So far, problems reported include insufficient number of registration kits to cover all parishes, some enrollment officers not being thorough with their work and technical problems with some of the kits delivered.

The minister assured that the problems were being attend to. “By end of next week, all parishes will have the necessary equipment,” Baba said.

He said they had set up a standby technical team being deployed to parishes where problems are being reported. “In addition, we have set up technical support teams at regional level to immediately respond to problems.”

He explained that issuance of national Ids would revolutionalise service delivery.

Paul Mwiru (Jinja Municipality east) called for gazettement of the registration centres.. Cecilia Ogwal blamed the internal affairs ministry for not briefing Parliament prior to the start of the registration exercise.

Winnie Kiiza (Kasese) wanted to know whether there was different facilitation for registration teams in hard to reach areas.

Baba explained that denying people who are above 40 years IDs was irregular. Eddie kwizera (Bufumbira east) had informed the House that such people in his constituency were being denied cards.