PM: Govt to review NID programme

PRIME Minister James Marape says the Government will do a full review of the National Identification card (NID) programme from next month.
He responded to questions from Nawaeb MP Kennedy Wenge in Parliament regarding the delay of up to five years in issuing NID cards to people that had registered.
Wenge also asked when the Government would make the service available in districts.
Marape said hopefully in January, the Government would make an announcement on the requirements of NID and where one could go to get the card instead of going to Port Moresby for it.
He urged people to stop travelling to Port Moresby for NID registration.
He said a lot of money had been invested into the programme, about K400 million under the O’Neill government, and it still remained operational and funded on an ad hoc basis.
Marape said the programme was not working properly, even its Huawei system was not functional.
“This NID requirement will be re-looked at and next year on, we will try to make NID easily accessible with the provincial governments throughout the country,” he said.
“We will re-look at this NID system completely.
“This has been one of the failures that we’ve inherited.
“I must admit that it’s somewhat functional, but every time I drive past Waigani, I see lines at the NID House and it does not look good for people to stand in line under the hot sun.”
Marape said they would freeze the requirements and have it in a simplified format so people could register in the districts and provinces.
“I thank some of the districts that tried to fund and assist the programme but the operation has been on an ad hoc basis,” he said.