NID Roll Out Complete for Yangoru-Saussia

The Yangoru-Saussia District in East Sepik Province is the first district in Papua New Guinea to complete its NID roll-Out Program, registering over 46,000 people.

Member Richard Maru said all 96 wards, including those in the mountains and the vast Sepik plains were visited by NID officers to register people.

The program was launched on June 18 2019 and all registrations were completed on May 25 2021, essentially taking only two years to complete the roll-out program.

Maru said this milestone could not have been reached without the support of the Yangoru Saussia District Development Authority.

"The Yangoru Saussia DDA provided full-time 24 hour vehicle, fuel, allowances, office space and every opportunity to complete this important exercise," Maru said.

According to the member, 46,363 people have been registered.

Maru hopes that this number will allow the district to reconcile its common roll with those registered for the NID.

He said, “The completion of these NID registrations will now allow Yangoru Saussia District to more accurately update (its) 2022 common roll by comparing our 2017 common roll to our NID registrations ward by ward and be able to add and remove names based on a credible source of reliable data, which is our NID registrations.”

NID Registrar General, Noel Mobiha said so far 44,937 recorded into the system.

Mobiha said, “Twenty five percent of this number are children below the age of 18. Those above the age of 18 make 75 percent of the number.”

Mobiha added that from that number 14,000 are children.

“We were privileged to finish this because the member and the district has put in a lot of resources to help us,” he said.

Mobiha said presidents from the district who were walking into the NID office and requesting staff to go and register their people.

“East Sepik is also the only province that has allocated a vehicle and K100,000 a year to help with the NID project to build up this vital SPV for the civil and Identity Registration.”

Mobiha also informed Maru that the East Sepik province is 43 percent of the total population completed in terms of registration, with Yangoru Saussia being the only district completed.

Maru went on to challenge all provinces to support the NID roll-out in their own provinces.

“The most important from this milestone is if leaders and districts take ownership, it can be done. There is no excuse why the rest of the country could not have got it done.

“We complain too much about the NID project, but it can be done, Yangoru Saussia has proven that we are able to complete this within two years,” Mobiha said.

Maru however expressed disappointment that only 14,254 NID cards have been issued to those registered.

In response to this, Mobiha clarified that the delay has been in the lack of manpower needed to complete the work and assured the member that all outstanding cards would be printed by December 31 or January 28 at the latest. He said at least 500 more people are needed to carry out the work.

“Every process in NID from registration, data entry, approvals has to be proportionated with the relative human resource. Men drive the machine.

“Right now, we are down by staff and we have about 700,000 backlog. We have about 400,000 sitting here for data entry to go through and we have 300,000 sitting in the approvals section before going through to get printed,” he explained.

Mobiha said to address the need for an increased labour force, the Registry is trying to recruit students over the Christmas period to assist in data entry on volunteer arrangements and run this on a 24 hour basis, rather than on a 8 hour basis. 

Author: 
Loop Author