While much of the public service machinery had shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted State of Emergency, the PNG Civil & Identity Registry has continued operations.
Despite registrations stopping due to social distancing rules, staff have continued to process applications that have gone in before the SOE.
Registrar General, Noel Mobiha, said the PNG Civil & Identity Registry continued operations throughout the SOE and continue to do so.
“We ran in the back office, because we got 440, 000 registrations to upload into the system. We’ve been operating nationwide but quietly in the office, with social distancing being paramount,” said Mobiha.
He added “Our planning team has put out a COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedure so, the Provinces are still working, but in the back office.
During the SOE the PNG Civil & Identity Registry recently signed an MOA’s with Esa’ala, Mul-Baiyer and Wapenamanda Districts to roll out the NID Progam.
Mobiha says they are slowly resuming registration as well.
“We haven’t done registrations. We started back in Bulolo, and we’ve done Maprik and Usino-Bundi, so we getting back slowly but people are scared.”