Long lines at a National Identification Registry center in Congotown
By Joyclyn Wea and Tetee Gebro with New Narratives
Summary:
- Government suspends national identification rollout indefinitely
- The government had previously suspended the process by 76 days
- Civil society activists call for a thorough review of the process before resumption
Following a chaotic rollout and mounting public frustration, the Liberian government has indefinitely suspended its controversial compulsory national identification program.
The government announced the move in a press release from the Ministry of Information Monday.
“The National Identification Registry (NIR) informs all public social service providers to take note and act in compliance with this directive,” it said. “At the same time, the issuance of the National Identification Cards is hereby suspended with immediate effect for administrative reasons. The public will be informed of the date of resumption of mass enrollment.”
The announcement came less than a week after the government had extended the enrollment process by 76 days. A FrontPage Africa/New Narratives investigation had found many citizens were angry and frustrated at being forced to wait in long lines and be rejected from service for days on end. With 15 centers in Monrovia processing about 85 people a day it would have taken more than three years to process Monrovia’s population of more than a million adults.
In the meantime many people, including elderly and other vulnerable citizens, were being locked out of banking, government and communications services which were now mandated to demand IDs from customers.
The government’s official statement requested “all commercial banks to relax the enforcement on the usage of the National Identification Card as a pre-requisite for all banking transactions.”
The ID system, part of a global effort by the World Bank to digitize public services and improve government efficiency, had been hobbled from the outset. In an interview with FrontPage Africa before the first suspension Andrew Peters, executive director of the National Identification Registry, said that $2 million in World Bank funding had been blocked because of a $1.7 million outstanding debt to Techno Brand, the Nairobi-based technology firm that constructed the Registry’s digital infrastructure at a cost of $5.9 million. World Bank requirements stipulate that all existing debts must be cleared before new funds can be disbursed.
Peters said the Registry had made a payment plan with the company and was hoping to see World Bank funding unlocked next month. He then planned a dramatic increase to 59 permanent centers and 118 mobile teams. Peters said he was optimistic about processing 500,000 people by August and one million by year-end.
In a Facebook post NAYMOTE’s Eddie Jarwolo compared Liberia’s ID card with those from Ghana and Nigeria
Government initially extended the deadline for registration, but with confusion at banks and other services, the chaos continued.
Transparency watchdogs were strongly supportive of the plan to digitize government services but they welcomed the suspension of the rollout.
“There were just far too many potholes and that clearly shows the unpreparedness of the government to actually meet up with its own policy mandate vis-à-vis the timelines,” said Harold Aidoo, executive director of Integrity Watch Liberia, in a phone interview. “The timelines were unrealistic because we were not prepared. We should be giving ourselves a minimum one year to make sure that we really do this properly, because there are so many things that come along with making sure that people get enlisted. Our target should not be limited to what World Bank; IMF and multilaterals tell us. Our target should be aligned clearly with our own national development agenda. Work on education, work on the human resource capacity, work on the logistical, work on coordination.”
Eddie Jarwolo, executive director, NAYMOTE Partners for Democratic Development, another leading civil society activist, flagged concerns with the security features of the cards that had been issued.
“The security code is not working,” said Jarwolo in a phone interview. “The barcode is not working. I’ve seen some people whose cards are already damaged, with all the information erased. A national identification should not be like that. Anybody can get that thing from the street.”
“Our national identification has to be linked to every other thing we do,” said Jarwolo, who pointed to successful rollouts in Ghana and Nigeria. “We don’t have the capacity. We need to ask other countries that have done it successfully before, like Ghana. The storage of the information for citizens has to be protected. That feature on our card must be very strong.
If we have a strong national identification, we can even use it for elections. It will save the country a lot of money.”
“If you look at the IDs from across the region, these come along with security features, fiscal and official recognition; the SIM cards that also look at having all your biodata,” said Aidoo. “These national identification systems, we need to see how it harmonizes with what exists across the region. This has to do with national social security, a whole lot of other banking information, a whole lot of information that we are going to be collecting and keeping. Accessing our national data, there are big question marks around that.”
This week legislators called Peters to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the rollout and the $US5 charge for the ID. For many Liberians living on less than $2.15 a day, the charge was challenging. Some representatives pushed for the process to be free.
The registration initiative is a $US30 million World Bank’s Governance Reform & Accountability Transformation Project or GREAT Project. It is intended to digitize critical services, including banking and telecommunications. Before the government’s latest suspension, only 16 percent of Liberia’s estimated 5.5 million people had been enrolled in the national database, according to the Registry.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
