Kumung challenged

It is a very deceptive tactic employed by Michael Kumung and his cohorts to convince Minister Maru, the O’Neill government and the public into believing that the acting registrar-general had registered 111, 258 people in the past three months.
This figure is unrealistic and misleading.
Since Kumung resumed as the acting registrar-general last October, he has put the NID office under total chaos.
He replaced all the best officers from data entry to management with his family and Revival Church congregation members who know nothing about data entry or civil registration, for that matter.
Worse still, there was no security paper for the printing of certificates, a problem faced by the office since last July until the end of December.
Only 29, 000 security papers were received.
Kumung must apologise to Maru and the people of PNG for publishing something incorrect.
It is impossible to register 111,457 people in three months.
The 146,567 registration data received previously was from the summary printout, and not from the registry.
The registry gives the exact total population registered, and this where the figure of 58,026 published by The National on Jan 22 was derived from.
The figure was not registered under Kumung’s management.
It was registered under previous registrar-general Dickson Kiragi.
The signature on the birth certificate received by officers from the Lands Department will confirm that.
The media release was only a propaganda orchestrated to deceive the minister and the government to seek permanent appointment to the registrar general’s position.
The only way Maru can confirm Kumung’s three-month performance is to send a team down to NID Haus and ask the ICT team to confirm how many people were registered in the past three months under Kumung’s management.
From there, Maru can confirm the figure released through the media.

Concerned Senior Officer
PNG NID Haus
Port Moresby