PNG civil registry eyes rural-based approach

GOING rural is the way forward to roll out and implement the National Identity (NID) project in PNG, acting Registrar-General of the PNG Civil and Identity Registry Michael Kumung says.
Kumung told The National over the weekend that the registry was looking at taking a more rural-based approach and Bulolo district in Morobe was the first rural district in the country to come on board and partner with the registry to roll out NID registrations.
“I must emphasise again that the NID project is not about registering people and issuing them birth certificates and NID cards,” he said.
“It’s about getting vital information and data of our country’s population so that government can use these data as the basis to plan for the allocation of resources to deliver goods and services and to plan the back end, which is linking this data to visa and passport services, health and education services, banking services, payroll and all of the services that citizens access.
“This is crucial because most of our people live in the rural villages and the DDAs and the provinces need the statistics of their population to plan for service delivery.”
He said for Bulolo, they were starting with the Buang local level government and would cover all the LLGs.
“We have other districts who showed interest and are in the process of getting their memorandum of understanding finalised, they include the Yangoru-Saussia in East Sepik, Middle Fly, Henganofi, Tewai-Siassi, Menyamya and Lae urban district.”