New phase for ID registration set for March

Another National ID registration phase is set to begin early this month. The exercise is meant to facilitate the registration of the nationals who have come of age required to poses the national ID and those who missed out on the previous exercises. Every Rwandan is entitled to own an ID card at the age of 16. The move was announced by the coordinator of the national ID project Pascal Nyamurinda yesterday.According to Nyamurinda, all Rwandans who fall in that category are called upon to utilise the chance and get themselves a national ID as it is a very important document. “I call upon all those people to make sure that they exploit this chance to avoid inconveniences that could come with the lack of it,” said Nyamurinda. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Eugene Barikana, warned all people who have neglected the registration exercise to make sure that they utilise the period and register or face the long hand of the law. “After this registration exercise, the Ministry is going to hold a massive crack down on people who don’t have IDs,“ warned Barikana adding that people who will be found without ID’s should be perceived to be criminals since to him no person is supposed to live in an area without identification. According to Barikana, some people just neglect owning ID’s hence reducing the importance of the card. Nyamurinda further said that the national ID project has succeeded in distributing IDs. Since the exercise began, up to 97 percent of the target population have received their ID’s. He explained that the remaining three percent of IDs which is over 160, 000 are still lying at the sectors and called upon the owners to go and pick them. He also urged grass root leaders to sensitise people to go and pick their IDs and emphasised the open-door policy for the national ID project offices at the sector levels to ease the distribution of the cards. Ends