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Government officials in Uganda are allegedly considering merging the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) with the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC), causing concern and controversy. The proposed merger, leading to the formation of the National Citizenship and Registration Services, contradicts a previous Cabinet decision to keep NIRA independent.

Panic has gripped the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) following reports that a group of top officials at the organisation and Ministry of Internal Affairs are secretly pushing for the idea of merging NIRA with the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC).

The merger would create a new agency called the National Citizenship and Registration Services.

Yet, during last year’s merger of various government bodies, the Cabinet resolved that NIRA should remain an independent body with an additional mandate of registering birth, marriage, and death of citizens which was being handled by Uganda Registration Services Bureau.

It’s understood that on January 24^th, the Internal Affairs Ministry held a meeting comprising its Permanent Secretary, Lt Gen Joseph Musanyufu, Deputy NIRA Executive Director, Brig Stephen Kwiringira, Public Service Permanent Secretary, Catherine Birwakwate and DCIC officials to discuss the merger of bodies under the Ministry.

Sources disclosed that some officials at the Internal Affairs Ministry have been trying to persuade the Public Service Ministry to table before Cabinet the idea of merging NIRA with DCIC.

The Internal Affairs Ministry spokesperson Simon Mundeyi confirmed that “the meeting actually took place” but denied the reports of secretly planning to merge NIRA with DCIC, saying, “we only discussed the functionality of NIRA in the sense of giving it additional responsibility of registering aliens.”

He emphasised: “I don’t remember the meeting discussing the idea of reverting NIRA to the Internal Affairs Ministry.”

However, sources said there are two main reasons why Internal Affairs Ministry officials want the registration and renewal of IDs to be controlled by a newly created agency.

One is that the first mass national Identity registration exercise conducted in 2014 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs was marred by allegations of corruption and illegal registration of tens of thousands of aliens.

For example, Pakistan does not allow dual citizenship. However, the ministry issued national IDs to thousands of these aliens.

“As of today, DCIC still provides certificates of citizenship by naturalisation and registration to these aliens for NIRA to issue them Ugandan national IDs,” said a source.

Mundeyi admitted that, “There were some mistakes in the past – where we had the late Honorary Consul of Pakistan Mr Katatumba writing letters to Immigration recommending some Pakistanis for national IDs and saying Pakistan was allowing dual citizenship. Some Pakistanis got the IDs wrongly. When we sought clarification from the Pakistan Embassy in Kenya, the record was set right that they don’t allow dual citizenship.”

He added: “We are now very strict -we look at the law and then establish the aliens’ country of origin. We no longer issue any certificates to Pakistanis.”

NIRA Deputy Executive Director, Brig Stephen Kwringira told ChimpReports that he was not aware of plans to merge NIRA with DCIC, saying, “The agenda of Cabinet cannot be determined by Permanent Secretaries in meetings lower than cabinet.”

He further said the merging of government bodies “started from the top (Cabinet) which concluded the matter. Those entities which were not merged included NIRA. There is no way such forums (January 24 meeting) can override or influence cabinet decisions.”

Sources disclosed that some officials at the Ministry of Internal Affairs unsuccessfully supported two companies (Muehlbauer and Mossip) in a multi-billion-shilling deal to supply software and other ICT accessories such as kits for capturing data and issuing national IDs to NIRA and are keen on scuttling the implementation of the upcoming national mass registration and renewal of national identity cards.

“The supporters of companies which were defeated in the bidding process (Muehlbauer and Indian company Mossip) now want NIRA merged with DCIC so that a new procurement process is managed by Internal Security Organisation (ISO) under classified procurements,” alleged a source.

The deal to process the national IDs was won by Uganda Security Printing Company (USPC) which had a joint venture with the government.

Nevertheless, sources disclosed that by taking back the mandate of processing the national IDs, the Internal Affairs Ministry officials will not only have access to hundreds of billions of shillings for the project and cover up for their illicit activities.

NIRA has a budget of Shs 666bn in the 2024/25 financial year for the implementation of the mass registration and renewal of national identity cards which are expiring in August 2024.

Initially, each kit was to be procured at Shs 17m but the figure has now been increased to Shs 22m per kit. This implies the total cost of procuring the kits shot by a staggering Shs 27.5bn.

In Ethiopia, government is procuring the biometric kits at $3,000 (Shs 10m) each for its national ID project.

NIRA recently said it was adding iris biometrics to the new ID card, which shall also be used as a travel document within the East Africa Region.

The card, the body says, will also contain other advanced security features that ensure ID verification and authentication without any fear of personal data being compromised.

NIRA’s regulations provide that a “holder of an expiring national ID is required to apply for renewal to NIRA in form 9, at least two months before the expiry of the card.”

This means that by June 2024, NIRA should have started processing IDs of 17.4 million Ugandans who are unregistered and renewal of identity cards for the registered 25.9 million Ugandans.