Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) is awaiting 5,680 biometric kits that include iris scanners before it starts the delayed mass enrollment and ID card renewal exercise of Ugandans in October. DNA will however not be picked, and, sample kits to be used have been displayed to the media today.
Gen David Muhoozi, Minister of State for Internal Affairs and NIRA Executive Director, Rosemary Kisembo told the press in Kampala today that the system to be used will be in the country in October, ahead of a Novemeber 30th 2024 deadline set by the Electoral Commission to receive data.
NIRA is required to deliver data to Electoral Commission that will be used as the national voters’ register ahead of the 2026 general elections.
NIRA aims to capture details of 17.2 million Ugandans who are unregistered, and renew national IDs of 15.8m Ugandans with a new system that includes five modules; NID care renew module, new registration module, replace card module, change of particulars module, and Get First ID module. Government will hire 13,000 personel to execute the mass enrollment exercise at 10,717 parishes across the country.
With about 15.8 million Ugandan National IDs set to expire between August 2024 to December 2025, Government has decided to extend the validity of all these cards by one year.
“The fisible date for the execise to commence when the new system is in place, is, October 15th 2024. During the period leading up to October 15th, persons aged 16 and above, or those who will be 18 by January 2026, are encourage to register to get a National Identification Numbers (NIN) using the current registration system,” Muhoozi said, adding that registration continues, and they are not waiting for the new system.
“As we speak registration continues, not that we are waiting for a start date. Those who can should continue registration, and we think we have about 3 million to handle.”
“This is therefore to emphasis that no one will be disefranchesid due to new system acquisition related issues.”
NIRA officials said one of the advantages of iris recognition is high degree of accuracy. Unlike other biometric techniques, such as fingerprint or face recognition, the probability of two irises being identical is extremely low. This, they said, ensures that the chances of false acceptance or rejection are minimal, making it a trusted identification method for various applications.
The new registraton kit features different from the old one is a portable solar kit, additional battery and Iris scanner.