NIRA Postpones Mass Enrollment For National IDs To July

The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has postponed the mass enrollment for national IDs to July. This latest development was announced by the NIRA Executive Director Rosemary Kisembo on Wednesday after the failure to kickstart the much-anticipated process this month.

As per the original timetable, the enrollment exercise was meant to start on June 1, 2024. However, there have been delays, especially in the recruitment of staff to carry out the exercise.

As is the norm, officials for such a critical role are meant to undergo training and coaching to meet the standards. However, the training program was delayed as the recruitment phase is said to have been impacted by the just-concluded National Census.

However, ED Kisembo didn’t pinpoint the exact reason for the delay but rather lumped it up as procurement hiccups.In 2014, Uganda’s first national ID registration process under the National Security and Information Systems Project saw 15.8 million national identification cards printed and issued out.

As you may know, the national IDs have a validity period of 10 years, which means those issued in the first batch will expire by the end of this year. The national ID has since become an integral item for security and identification, thus inspiring this mass enrollment and registration process.

This is critical in ensuring that service delivery alongside other government programs like the upcoming 2026 general elections are not affected.

As you are aware, finances for this exercise were appropriated in December 2023, but the procurement process in its nature is a mind step process and sometimes when it involves international bidders, it even takes longer than usual.

Rosemary Kisembo, NIRA ED

The process of renewal of national identification cards plus replacement of lost and damaged ones will be free. However, a premium cost of Shs 300,000 will be levied on citizens that want to change their particulars. This doesn’t apply to those changing because of marriage and divorce.

As of when it starts, the mass enrollment for upgraded national IDs will last a period of 10 months.