Noel Mobiha

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.

Under the partnership the Civil & Identity Registry will establish a District NID Office and train locals to implement the roll out.

The partnership was signed by Deputy Prime Minister and Esa’ala MP, Davies Steven, and Civil & Identity Registrar, Noel Mobiha, on Friday May 1st.

Esa’ala District is the 24^th District to partner the Civil & Identity Registry roll out the NID Program in the District.

Wapanamanda in Enga Province, and Mul-Baiyer in Western Highland Province both signed up on April 16^th to partner the NID office to register locals and distribute NID cards.

The MOU signing was attended by Minister for Planning and Monitoring, Sam Basil, Wapenamanda MP, Rimbink Pato, and Mul-Baiyer MP, Koi Trappe.

Wapenamanada And Mul-Baiyer are the 23^rd and 24^th Districts respectively to put their hands up to join the roll out of the NID program.

Acting Registrar General of the Civil Identity & Registry Office, Noel Mobiha, said much of the registration has been getting rid of a backlog of data.

Mobiha was speaking at the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics: Legal Review Workshop held recently in Port Moresby.

The Civil Identity & Registry Office is expanding slowly on the NID system and learning as it goes.

Mobiha said his team still has a big task ahead, to deliver 2 million NID cards by December 31^st, 2019.

Noel Mobiha made a statement following a system shutdown at the National Identification office last Wednesday, attributing it to an overload of the system as well as the power blackouts.

The staff (name withheld due to safety concerns), instead believes the shutdown was a result of the Civil Registration System’s failure to communicate with the Card Management System (CMS) due to ‘tampering’.

Acting Registrar General, Noel Mobiha, today explained the glitch in the system.

He said the outage is due to an overload of the system, causing a shutdown since last week.

“We lost the capability to have our staff here register onto the main body now, getting through the window to getting some work for the registrations,” Mobiha said.

Power outage is also believed to be the reason behind the glitch.

“Our registration numbers went beyond what was known for the systems.”

Michael Kumung has been appointed to head the NSO vacating the role of Registrar General of the PNG Civil and Identity Registry (PNG CIR).

The Minister also announced the appointment of Noel Mobiha to head the PNG NID Project.

Minister Maru announced the appointments today in Port Moresby saying he is confident in the appointments made.

Maru says since Kumung’s appointment as Acting Registrar General in October 2017, there have been improvements to the integrity of the NID Registration process.

And he is confident Kumung can rejuvenate the NSO.