The National Identification and Registration Authority has said the newly printed national ID cards will only go live on March,31.
Addressing journalists on Monday, NIRA spokesperson, Claire Ollama said the mass renewal and registration exercise that started in May at parishes officially ended on Sunday, February 08.
She however said that by the end of the exercise, at least 10.1 million cards had been printed.
“Of these, 7 million cards have been dispatched to the various district NIRA offices around the country. However, of the 7 million cards dispatched, only 2.5 million have been collected by owners,”Ollama said.
Many Ugandans who have already picked their new national IDs have complained that they can’t be used for services like simcard renewal as they can’t be read by machines.
Speaking on Monday, the NIRA spokesperson admitted that the new cards are not yet live but said it is by design.
“This system development project was a journey of 10,000miles with 12 stops. The first stops of registering and renewing national IDs is done and as we speak, our 8th stop will be to electronically enable you verify your card. We want to inform the public that the window to allow cards go live is not yet open,” Ollama said.
She added that the system will be live on March ,31 but said currently all service providers who depend on national IDs have been guided on what to do.
“All the 103 stakeholders who depend on national id to identify you have been guided on how to approach the new card. If there is such a service provider not guided, bring them to our attention.”
Ugandans use national IDs to open bank accounts, register for new simcards and renewing them as well as applying for passports among other services.
The renewal
The NIRA spokesperson said by the end of the mass renewal and registration exercise that started in May last year, 14.3 million Ugandans had renewed , adding that the NIRA register now has 35 million Ugandans.
Ollama noted that NIRA has successfully migrated 28.5 million records from the old to the new registration system.
