NIRA suspends ID exercise at Mutukula, near Tanzania border

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Identification and Registration Authority -NIRA has suspended the National ID registration process in Mutukula, Kyotera district over flaws.  The registration exercise at Mutukula and Kakuuto Sub County, near the Uganda-Tanzania Border, was reportedly marred with gross irregularities, massive extortion and registration of aliens.

Tony Kasule, the Kyotera and Rakai districts Registrations Officer explains that the decision was taken after a meeting with the district security team in which it was reported that the process had been compromised.

Kyotera Resident District Commissioner Major David Matovu says that the registration process had been messed up by wrong elements that were bribing their way through the system to illegally obtain national identity cards.

Matovu has indicated that the security teams have now undertaken investigations into the reported flaws, to have the gaps fixed. At the moment, all unregistered residents in these sub-counties can only seek the service from the district headquarters in Kasaali; located about 45 kilometres from Mutukula Town Council.

“We want to ensure a clean registration process, but the reports we were getting arouse a lot of suspicions even against some of the NIRA staff,” he says.

Stephen Ssebunya, the Kakuuto Sub-county chairperson also interim head for Mutukula town council says they are reaching out to the village council leadership to find joint solutions to the leakages. He has partly blamed the leakages to the Sub County Internal Security Officer-(GISO) and NIRA field staffs that he says have not been vigilant to prevent flaws in the exercise.

Ssebunya has however explained that the suspension of the process in the area has already become a burden to the residents who incur high transport costs to the district headquarters to be registered.

Magdalene Nassolo, the chairperson of Lwazi ‘A’ Cell in Mutukula Town Council, is also afraid that the withdrawal of the registration kits from the area will deny many residents the opportunity of registering for National Identification cards.

Nassolo has, on the other hand, asked security to investigate officers who were using the process to extort money from applicants that seek recommendations for registration.

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