Kumung wants MPs to support NID project

By CHARLES MOI
ACTING Registrar-General Michael Kumung has urged Members of Parliament to support the PNG NID project and have people in their districts registered.
Kumung said Bulolo district in Morobe and the Yangoru-Saussia district in East Sepik were the only two that the PNG Civil and Identity Registry would roll out the project to.
Districts next in line are Koroba-Kopiago in Hela, Kompiam-Ambum in Enga, Menyamya in Morobe and Gazelle in East New Britain.
“It’s a government project and leaders should take the lead and then the people will come forward,” Kumung said.
He said one of the major challenges his team would face in registering people in the districts was the uploading of data from there to Waigani via the internet.
“We are talking to communication providers to give us the coverage areas so we can do our own modelling on how we can structure our roll-out and position our teams to connect with our office to load or transfer data,” Kumung said.
“The current ones supplying are Telikom, bemobile, (and) Digicel. But that’s a challenge that we will face when we are actually in the districts.
“We have qualified Papua New Guineans who can do the job. It’s just a matter of knowing what we will do and linking to the system so that data and the system keep running.”
Kumung said the other challenge was the belief by some that NID was linked to the (biblical) mark of the beast (666).
“We are informing the people that it’s something that the Government has taken the ownership of and driven for development,” he said.
“It has nothing to do with biblical connotations.”
Kumung and NID staff were at Government House in Port Moresby on Friday to register Governor-General Grand Chief Sir Bob Dadae, Lady Hannah Dadae and Government House staff.
“Instead of waiting for the people you are reaching out to the people especially people in the rural areas,” Sir Bob said.