The Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced that the mass enrollment and renewal of national IDs will kick off this month.
Government a few years ago announced it would carry out a mass enrollment and renewal exercise but for many months now, this has not been forthcoming.
Addressing journalists on Monday, the State Minister for Internal Affairs, Gen David Muhoozi said the mass enrollment and renewal exercise will kick off on May, 27.
“Beginning May, 27, NIRA will mobilise and deploy at the parish level within every district in the 146 administrative units of this country,” Gen Muhoozi said.
He however said NIRA has kicked off a pilot phase of the mass enrolment and renewal exercise that will run up to May 26 , 2025 to allow the Electoral Commission complete the national display exercise.
“ The pilot phase began with the renewal of IDs of the Board of Directors of NIRA and the top management of Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
According to the minister, the mass enrolment is meant to renew 15.8 million cards that are expiring in June 2025 , while many of these have already expired.
He added that NIRA also targets to register 17.2 million Ugandans who are not currently in the national register.
To this effect, NIRA has procured 5665 biometric registration kicks delivered in January, 2025, two card machines with a combined printing capacity of 100,000 laser engraved cards per day.
According to the minister, NIRA contracted Tahaluf Al Emarat Technical Solutions which among others has built a new national security information system.
“The new system provides for online pre-registration of biographical data. The new system will also capture the iris as an additional biometric feature,” Gen Muhoozi said.
Requirements
According to the minister, citizens seeking renewal of their national IDs will be required to present an original or photocopy of the expired ID or a valid police letter where the card is lost.
“During the issuance of the new card, a citizen shall present the expired card for validation or valid police letter where the original ID is lost or stolen.”
The minister said a renewal doesn’t include change or correction of particulars and that the new national ID will bear old biographic details of the old card and the national identification number will not change.
Gen Muhoozi said new registration for children below the age of `18 will require that the applicant present a photocopy of national ID of one of their parents and in absence of the parents’ national IDs, they will be required to present documents for one of their four grandparents, identification documents for a blood relative who is a direct descendant of any of the four grandparents.
NIRA Executive Director, Rosemary Kisembo said that government has provided all the necessary resources including funds to ensure smooth running of the exercise.
“You will be given opportunity to register a new place of residence but if you wish to change your name or any other information related to parentage, date of birth or spouse, you will be required to use change of particulars or correction of information service,” Kisembo said.
" If you want to remove or add a name, you request for change of particulars service.”