The Performance of National Identification and Registration Authority in Uganda: 2016-2017

Biometric national identity card systems are gradually becoming attractive within Africa and considered as a vital social element. It is presumed that offering national identity cards to all the citizenry will help African governments to fight numerous societal malevolence such as extremism, unlawful immigration, deceitful activities, and quicken community service delivery. However, the introduction of national identity card has been a matter of academic and policy debate. This paper assessed the service delivery performance of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) a mixed method approach was used and results indicated delays in new Identity Card (ID) application, replacement and change of ID particulars in in both 2016 and 2017 in Uganda. It was suggested that there is need for service level agreement, translation of application forms in different languages, strategy to deal with priorities, increase band width for data connectivity in upcountry offices and scrap the replacement fees.

of the Constitution specifically states that "The state shall register every birth, marriage and death occurring in Uganda" (ULII, 1995). Additionally, Article 16 of the Constitution gives, the National Citizenship and Immigration Board rights of Citizenship and Immigration Control Act consist of: The project began with in 2015 with voters whose details were with Electoral Commission (EC). The exercise later started individual registration with in Kampala City (Eyotaru, 2015a) before the neighboring districts after the exercise was rolled out in three districts namely; Kasese, Buyende and Lira before massively across the whole country (Rwanyekiro, 2013).
The Uganda National ID is accepted as a credible security document used across borders in the region as well as a travel through international airports. The biodata for all Ugandans who registered was kept safely and authentically as a primary source of information and identification of persons hence making it usable for both public and private institutions as an information source for validation purposes. The Government made a huge investment into National Identification System which begun with mass enrolment in 2014 with the first ID (locally referred to as Ndagamuntu) issued in 2015 under the National Security Information System (NSIS). This project is one of the successful projects of NRM which is the ruling party and its considered to be the best in Africa accepted by World Bank (Reporter, 2019b). The exercise was introduced by National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA). The system involves biometric data were the system automatically generates a unique number for accessing government services (Atuhairwe, 2019).
However, the registration for national identity card has been faced by many setbacks which among others include; complexity of citizenship verification, problematic registration kits, incompetent enrolment officers, poor storage of equipment (Note 1), and delays in the process of acquiring the ID. It is against this background that this report presents analysis on the average number of days set by NIRA for new ID application, replacement, and change of particulars and the average number of days which were used in 2016 and 2017 to assess whether there was a significant change. ii. To establish the change in the number of days proposed by NIRA and the days used in 2017 for new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars of people in Uganda.
iii. To understand the role of the National ID and the key services targeted to be integrated.
iv. To assess the weakness and strength of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). iii. What are the roles of the National ID and the key services targeted to be integrated?
iv. What are the weakness and strength of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA)?

Literature Review
In 2015 Uganda joined the rest of the world to the Registration of Persons Act (ROPA), and the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) switched to a multi-sectoral approach to identification in Uganda that was partly driven by the decision to use the national identification card (NID) as the unique identifier to enable systematic service delivery (Mühlbauer, 2019). While Africa still lags behind the rest of the developed world systematized service operations. There is a lot of literature world over in this field of study that justifies a gap for Uganda hence the motivation of the study. Afghanistan published on the insights of the national identification (Danish, Yona, & Senjyu, 2014), south Korea researched on the tensions between culture and civil society (Lee, 2018) further citizens called for clarification in internal and preventive controls (Kim, 2004), Australia referred to it as another piece of plastic for their wallets (Clarke, 1987) the citizens further sued government (Roy, 2005) further they corrected the deception concerning the history of the national ID (Greenleaf & Nolan, 1986) and they shared lessons (Greenleaf, 1988).
Majority of countries were on a cross roads either to accept fear of terrorism or privacy (Matar, 2003), in Portugal the government linked access to health services with national ID (Santos, Correia, & Antunes, 2008), globally the national ID was meant for security reasons (Bennett & Lyon, 2013), in Asia especially Malaysia the citizens were querying the security issues on the national ID (Kee, Nee, Beng, & Fun, 2012) Shukri questioned the privacy and security of the national IDs (Kuada, Wiafe, Addo, & Djaba, 2017;Shukri & Hafiz, 2015), they system doesn't allow negotiations with another person in terms of cross checking identity and were irregularities are found its invalid national ID (Haala, 2005(Haala, , 2008, the National ID projects around the world are demeaning identity (Sobel, 2001), the national ID system has been reduced to who belongs to United States (Redman, 2008) and in Canada the national ID was resisted with reasons (Marleau, 2003). From the above analysis its clear that countries faced a lot of resistance to introduce the national IDs. In Uganda government has implemented it widely and the only study done was to revitalize the Birth registration (Registration, 2002) hence the motivation into the study to investigate the performance of NIRA.
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is useful to acceptance of biometric verification for National Identification Card in Uganda because the government of Uganda has tagged all services to the possession of the card, i.e., banking services, passport registration, acquiring a sim card for mobile communication and many others. TRA appears to uphold that, persons would admit biometric verification if they can see optimistic consequences or benefits related with possessing the card used out of that technology (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975

Methodology
The study used both a quantitative and qualitative methods which involved presenting the findings using descriptive statistics and as well as documentary review. The quantitative method for this study was preferred because of the statistical and numerical facts gathered from secondary sources of the Office of the Auditor General. The quantitative methods were significant in this study because they

Study Findings
Examining the change in the number of days proposed by NIRA and the days used in 2016 for

new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars of people in Uganda
The study investigated the change in the number of days proposed by NIRA and the days used in 2016 for new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars of people in Uganda. The findings www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjssr The findings show that there was a reduction of 2 days from the number of days (16 days) proposed by NIRA in the process of ID replacement in 2016, translating to a percentage of reduction in delays by 13%. This implies that there was a quicker process of ID replacement in 2016 due to fewer days taken.
The results also show that there was an average increase of 83 days from 30 days agreed by NIRA in changing ID particulars in 2016 and this translated to a percentage of delays in days by 177%. This implies that there were more delays in the process of changing ID particulars in 2016. The findings further indicate that people who had errors in their ID particulars would take more days to receive their IDs compared to persons who would apply for new IDs and making replacements.

ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars of people in Uganda
The study also assessed whether there was any change in the number of days proposed by NIRA and the days used in 2017 for new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars of people in  Source: Authors' own computations based on data from Auditor General's Report (2018) The results presented in Table 2  The study also revealed that there was an additional average number of days (49 days) from 16 days agreed upon by NIRA in the ID replacement process in 2017 leading to a percentage of delays in days by 206%. The findings imply that there was more delays (206%) in the process of ID replacement compared to new ID application and change of ID particulars in 2017.
The average number of days for changing ID particulars were 37 more than the proposed number of days by NIRA of 30 days and this resulted into a percentage of delays in days by 23%. This implies that there were 23% delays in days for changing ID particulars in 2017. However, the percentage of delays in changing ID particulars in 2017 was less than that of 2016.

Qualitative analysis
Organogram of NIRA  dd) Infrastructure development mapping ee) Facilitate Regional and International integration based on verifiable and reliable data: i. Support for regional integration (protocols for movement across the region) ii. Conform to International obligations as a base document for issuance of the new East African Community E-Passport The key services targeted to be integrated following the implementation of the National ID:

NIRA's strength
1) It's not a luxury but a treasure and not having it is like you cease to exist by so doing Ugandans have sold their birth rights. There is need for Ugandans to have interest in their civic duties and personal responsibility for their own wellbeing avoid being used or abused their ow contribution to the development of their country and renewal is still questionable. The is urgent need to fix crumbling institutions (Atuhairwe, 2019;Rwanyekiro, 2013).
2) The exercise didn't leave out students and children according to Bwambale (2019) the exercise of ID registration was extended to learners by 2017 and completed ID were to be collected from their respective schools (Mpairwe, 2018). Those who were below 16 years of age were assigned National Identification Numbers (NINs) and sent to various districts in the country NIRA offices and respective head teachers to extend the NINs to various parents or NIRA offices on presentation of National Identification or use their NIRA mobile platform (Bwambale, 2019;Reporter, 2019a).
3) NIRA established lost and found card section on its website and encouraged Ugandans to first check before applying for a new ID to avoid meeting costs since the authority is stuck with 2000 IDs and picking a recovered ID requires visiting headquarters at Kololo (Bikala, 2019). The project is on course towards achieving that all Ugandans acquire a National Identification Card (Kadilo, 2019). 4) The insurance of IDs will improve security in the country as well as stop vote rigging in the country during the forthcoming elections. The will support in reducing ghost workers in public service which will reduce government expenditure (GoU, 2014).

5) Decentralization of NIRA services across all districts in Uganda to ease access and improve service
delivery. To be will improve efficiency and effectiveness in operations and reduce frustrations that Ugandan has accumulated over the years. It's very hard for Ugandans to acquire the IDs were some were reported to spend sleepless nights at NIRA headquarters (Sekanjako, 2020).

1)
Employees of NIRA demand for bribes to deliver services to Ugandans. According to Bikala (2019) police in Iganga district held a 33 year old staff allegedly soliciting 20,000/-bride to process the national ID (Independent, 2019b).
2) Impersonation citizens are getting IDs in other peoples' names this encourages fraud especially related to land matters and NIRA systems should be able to capture double entry and issue a second card illegally (Bagala, 2019a(Bagala, , 2019b. In areas around the borders of Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi foreigners were seen entering Kakuuto Sub -County and Mutukula Town Council to register for IDs this led to suspension of registration process for Insuring them (Kimbowa, 2019). There were conspiracy as well as political issues in the National Identification Card project since those registering can't tell who is citizen and who is not (Eyakuze, 2020;UNHCR, 2016). Some instances Ugandan were reported to have received two cards and may imply that the system may be used by unscrupulous individuals for manipulation purposes (Voices, 2015).

3)
Stolen data that caused a panic to NIRA following their failure to share the national data base containing individual bio data that would help the telecom companies in Uganda FastTrack the verification process and to register SIM Cards to enable the public use for communication across the country (Urban, 2017). Uganda communication commission prolonged the process were a telecom company was required to submit to UCC after they send to NIRA to cross check whether the submitted information matches with that on face of the ID card and there was fear that their personal information was being traded to telecom companies (Ayebazibwe, 2017;Mousal, 2020). There is need for vigilance with sim registration agents and it's illegal to scan with thumb twice this stops the unscrupulous card vendors operating on behalf of telecom companies. For sim replacement UCC gave a directive to mobile companies use a verification machnaism using a short code (Mousal, 2020).

4)
Over 16 million aged 16 and above who registered have not received their National Identification Cards. There are reported unending delays to produce the IDs especially to those who are making fresh requests and those who renewing lost ones (defaced, damaged, change particulars and rectification of information on the ID). The average time to get an ID is twelve (12) weeks why do Ugandan wait up to three years (independent, 2019aKadilo, 2020;Kyeyune, 2020;URN, 2020).

5)
Last minute National cards acquirers due to increased demand to access services in the country.

6)
The process of acquiring National Identification Cards is complex and long. Half of the population 16.8 million Ugandans do not have IDs a situation that is worrying. Ugandans who own IDs with errors originating from NIRA they have to pay a price of 50,000/-in order for the fault to be rectified (Editor, 2020). The implementation the law in Section 82 of the Registration Persons Act, 2015 protects NIRA staff from personal liability for mistakes made while on duty (Independent, 2010b(Independent, , 2019cNamyalo, 2019;URN, 2020).

7)
Delayed release of National Identification is affecting other sectors such as banking sector since the ID is major document demanded by financial institutions. There are very long queues and Ugandans are wasting valuable time lining up for days before services are delivered (Independent, 2010a;Namyalo, 2019;URN, 2020).

8)
Lack of the ID locks any Ugandan from accessing any services in telecom companies, buying land, banks, driving permit, account opening, and it's made worse when other documents such as a passport are no longer acceptable by majority of agencies in Uganda (Editor, 2020;Kadilo, 2020;Kemigisa, 2015;Mousal, 2020;Namyalo, 2019).

9)
Some IDs are queried due to double application, incomplete information and questions regarding citizen verification (Kadilo, 2020).
10) Close to 2,483,548 citizens missing IDs may not appear on the National Register since electoral commission currently taps voters data from NIRA (Kahungu, 2020;Kemigisa, 2015).
11) According to civil right activists, NIRA is turning IDs into a discrimination tool hence denying some citizens their fundamental rights. Ugandans without an ID can't be recruited in the army, failure to access financial services, pension, purchase of land, mobile money transactions, airport, insurance policies, social security, government education loans and accessing health services (Ainebyoona, 2018;Namyalo, 2019). 13) Registration of other foreigners as Ugandans is illegal culprits are Rwandese majority are students in Ugandan universities (Bagala, 2019b).

12) UPDF soldiers in uniform and
14) The current system lacks standard operating procedures and timelines which applications should be based to be processed. Some applications remain in the systems for months with being flagged since there is no internal mechanism to track. 16) NIRA operates an online system which needs data processing insistently to avoid service delays.
In districts were NIRA services were decentralized due to pressure from Parliament have no online system for transmission of information from the point of registration to head office (Kololo) were data is processed this implies that there is data transmission is not real time and only transported twice or three times a month.
17) Majority of Ugandans don't understand English language this hinders them from registering. The government ensure the registration forms are translated in several languages to avoid blocking many Ugandans from accessing services.
18) Applications were not handled on "first come first serve basis" this resulted into long queues and staff were not focusing on activities that were considered more urgent. The activities are unplanned and work according to pressures from other government agencies.
19) Lack of feedback mechanism for rejected applications. The feedback is through field NIRA staff at the districts. Management doesn't consider the resource element in terms of time and transport since completion of the process is in Kololo in Kampala.

1)
Need for service level agreements in place and explained to all Ugandans how much time is needed for NIRA to replace a lost ID? How much time is needed to produce a new card? Why were services decentralized? Why doesn't NIRA decentralize all services to the district offices? (URN, 2020).
2) The government should expedite the translation of the registration forms and requirement lists in several languages to avoid blocking many Ugandans from accessing services. The is need for comprehensive strategy for sanitation of the Public about NIRA services and why the citizens need them.

3)
There is need for NIRA management to develop a strategy for handling priorities and tasks form other stakeholders in much more coordinated way with minimum interruptions of their day to day business.

4)
NIRA should contact NITAU to ensure that they are provided with data connectivity to allow interconnectivity in their district offices to allow cards be printed on time. This will reduce delays in service delivery. 5) The operation system should have ability to send a text message to the applicant or NIRA should establish a call center where agents call the clients back in way of feedback sharing concerning the status of their applications.

6)
Scrap the 50,000/-for ID replacement it has caused a lot of suffering its 4 years Ugandans are struggling to get ID we thought the information is already in the system. The public outcry must be responded to since it denies Ugandans service delivery. There is need to regulate ID replacement to streamline service operations and deliver timely (Eyotaru, 2015b).

7)
NIRA management needs to urgently review the process, procedures and standards and ensure that they are automated and monitored this will improve efficiency.

8)
Now that the process of obtaining the ID is continuous, the National ID should not be considered as the sole document to access public services. There is also urgent need for Nira to employ competent data entrants who pay attention to detail so as to avoid making glaring mistakes as they enter people's data.

9)
Local council chairpersons should be very careful before signing on the forms they need to verify the person this will help in stopping the fraud in securing National IDs.
10) There is need to employ more competent staff to ensure that the process of new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars is done within few days.
11) The study recommends that NIRA should develop an automated system which would reduce on individual tasks of workers since this would improve on efficiency.

Conclusion
The study concluded that, there were more delays in the process of new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars in both 2016 and 2017 in Uganda. Although the number of days for ID replacement reduced significantly from the agreed number of days by NIRA in 2016, there was an exponential growth in delays for ID replacement in 2017 even compared to the days for new ID application and change of ID particulars. Therefore, there is need by the government to design interventions within NIRA to fight the delays in the process of new ID application, replacement, and change of ID particulars.
The delays in the identification and registration of persons have not only resulted in increased public frustration with the process but have also significantly delayed the realisation of the benefits envisioned from the registration of citizens. Such benefits include availability of reliable and verifiable data for planning and delivery of services by government, facilitation of regional integration based on reliable and verifiable data facilitation of growth of the financial sector through provision of reliable data for business transactions, among other benefits.