By George Mponda
Karonga, May 7, Mana: Norwegian Ambassador to Malawi, Ingrid Marie Mikelsen has said her government is committed to ensuring that Malawi’s citizenry have national identity cards for them to participate in the 2025 General Election.
Mikelsen was speaking Tuesday when she toured National Registration Bureau (NRB) offices at Karonga District Council.
"Elections are coming up in a year from now and we need more people to have national identity cards so that they can vote for leaders of their choice., Norway, has since 2016 been supporting the NRB with National Registration and Identification System (NRIS). We are proud that the system is functioning well.
Norway has provided more than K5 billion to make sure that the project is implemented successfully. We understand that there are challenges in terms of equipment but nonetheless, the system is functioning well," Mikelsen said
She added that through collaboration between different stakeholder and the Norwegian Statistical Bureau, the data in the system is very reliable.
Principal Secretary for NRB in the Ministry of Homeland Security, Mphatso Sambo said for a long time, Norwegian Government has played a crucial role in supporting Malawi Government in implementation of the project.
"The NRB will register all eligible candidates and provide them with national identity cards. We are currently in the 8th phase of the National Registration Outreach Programe.
Our job is to register eligible people so that they access identity cards but we do not register people for elections. We only support the electoral process through the registration of Malawians,"said Sambo.
Sambo added that the NRB will soon be launching a mop up exercise in all districts from June 1 whereby all people who will be missed in the current phase, should be served.
