‘No shortcuts in ID distribution’

Dedza District Council has appealed to head teachers engaged by the National Registration Bureau (NRB) to distribute national identity (IDs) cards in Dedza to avoid shortcuts when discharging their duties.

Dedza assistant district registrar Boniface Butawo said in an interview on Thursday that national IDs are personal documents and should be delivered directly to the registrant.

“Registrants are supposed to go to the centres where they registered and collect the cards for themselves. National identity cards are personal documents and some details on them such as ID numbers are supposed to be confidential,” he said.

Butawo said the distribution exercise will run for 21 days and registrants who fail to collect their cards during the period will collect them through the district registration office.

Dedza Police Station officer-in-charge Emmie Soko said they have recorded cases where criminals have used other people’s identity cards to commit various offences.

Dedza received the first batch of national IDs for 372 000 people out of the registered 422 000, according to Butawo.

He said the remaining 50 000 identity cards have not yet been printed but je assured that they would be ready in January next year. n