The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has received new high-tech equipment to enhance the printing of national identity cards.
Each of the four state-of-the-art card printing machines can produce up to 3,000 national IDs per hour, significantly increasing efficiency.
“This latest shipment aligns with NIRA’s ongoing preparations for the upcoming National ID mass enrollment and renewal exercise at the parish level,” the authority stated.
According to NIRA, the new machines are expected to streamline operations and reduce turnaround times for ID processing. This follows the previous delivery of over 5,000 registration kits, which have been crucial in training Registration Assistants and Officers.
With these technological advancements, NIRA aims to provide timely and reliable identification services to Ugandans.
The first batch of national IDs was issued between 2014 and 2015, and after a 10-year validity period, they expired in 2024 and 2025. The government recently extended the expiry period by one year.
At least 15.8 million national IDs are expected to expire by August 2025, prompting the mass registration exercise to renew IDs while incorporating advanced security features for improved identification.
NIRA Executive Director Rosemary Kisembo recently noted that only 27.4 million Ugandans are currently registered out of the 45.9 million estimated in last year’s census.
She explained that the forthcoming exercise aims to register between 17 and 18 million Ugandans who have never been documented.
“There are between 17 to 18 million new Ugandans to be registered. At our current pace of one million registrations per year, it would take 17 years to register everyone,” Kisembo stated.
The mass enrollment will also accommodate the 1.5 million Ugandans born annually, according to UBOS statistics.
