Ministry moves to resolve national IDs challenge
Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma has said the ministry has secured $4 million (over K4 billion) from the Reserve Bank of Malawi to expedite the processing of national identity (IDs) cards.
This comes amid a public outcry on delays in processing and renewing national IDs in the country.
In an interview yesterday, the minister was upbeat that this will resolve the challenge of delays in processing the IDs as well as renewing expired ones which the National Registration Bureau (NRB) was facing due to shortage of forex.
He said: “We have already paid the supplier and identified some to help in the process of printing to clear the backlog.
“We had a challenge in processing national IDs due to the issue of forex as we could not pay the supplier.”
Ng’oma called on all Malawi citizens to register for national IDs or renew the expired ones, saying stakeholders have agreed that registration for the 2025 Tripartite Elections set to commence in September 2024 will only be based on national IDs.
He acknowledged the need for more civic education, saying people are not registering for the IDs as required, citing Dowa in the Central Region where he said only 35 000 have registered out of an expected 100 000 while Mulanje in the Southern Region has registered 25 000 instead of the expected 100 000.
Said the minister: “On the fees attached to the renewing process of the IDs, my ministry is in discussion with stakeholders involved for a consideration on fees such as the police report which is currently at K10 000 while the fee for renewal is K2 500.
“We are also seeking direction from the President on removing the expiry date on the identification cards, thereby making them permanently valid,”
In a previous interview, NRB spokesperson Norman Fulatira said besides the forex issues, the bureau is often haunted by the shortage of staff and intermittent breakdown of ID printers which affect renewal processes and registration of new ones.
In 2022, the bureau planned to renew about three million national IDs which expired in 2021. However, they only renewed about 500 000 ID cards. About 867 000 ID cards expired in 2022.
On June 19 2023, the bureau started conducting national ID outreach and community death registration exercises across the country to give an opportunity to citizens who have just turned 16 years to register for their first ID card and those that would want to replace their national ID cards.
