NIRA undertakes to rectify errors on national IDs

The National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA) has launched a three-month exercise aimed at rectifying errors existing on national identity cards.

The free-of-charge exercise is set to begin on January 14, 2019, at sub-county headquarters across the country. The authority has been charging a fee of Shs 50,000 from persons seeking to rectify errors on their IDs issued after the mass enrollment exercise which was launched in 2014.

A total of 27 million people have so far been registered by the authority. However a sizeable number of cards were printed with mis-spelt names, errors in birth dates and un-captured signatures, among others.

Some were picked by the owners and are being used with the errors, while millions of others remain in the custody of the authority.

NIRA public relations officer Michael Muganga says that the aim is to ensure that the data on the national IDs is corrected and that it matches all other public records of the ID holders.

Muganga says that the corrections will be done, alongside the registration of persons who could have missed the initial mass registration exercise undertaken in 2014.

He says that the authority wants to extend the services to all communities so that persons who are not registered are not disenfranchised by the system ahead of the 2021 general election.

The exercise is estimated to cost Shs 7 billion.