By Patience Lunda:
The National Registration Bureau (NRB) has said it has replaced all National Identity (ID) cards that were lost when the country was hit by Cyclone Freddy in March this year.
Cyclone Freddy affected over two million people in 16 councils of the Southern Region and approximately 10, 000 national IDs have been replaced.
In an interview, NRB Principal Secretary, Mphatso Sambo said the replacement of the national IDs was an emergency response that was done with partners such as the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) who were crucial in the assessment of those that were affected.
“We have managed to replace all national IDs that were lost during Cyclone Freddy and we made sure that they are replaced within a short period of time,” he said.
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However, Sambo added that some people were posing as victims when they were not, so as to take advantage of the waiver that was put in place to ensure that all people that had lost their IDs during Cyclone Freddy should not pay the ID renewal fee of K4,500.
“Some people wanted to come in and take advantage of the process but we had to help them in another way,” he explained.
On her part, Loveness Imani, a social commentator commended NRB for the move to replace the lost IDs but questioned why they haven’t considered speedy renewal of other IDs that have expired.
Imani cited an example that some people have waited for over a year to get their Ids renewed but to no avail, which is making it difficult for them to access some essential services.
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“We are asking them to clear the backlog of national IDs because other people have waited for a very long time but nothing is happening. If they managed to secure funding to replace the IDs for the Cyclone Freddy survivors then they can also find some [funding] to renew the expired IDs,” she said.
Figures indicate that a total of 426 people have had their IDs renewed in Machinga, 507 in Mangochi, 1,693 in Phalombe, 622 in Mulanje, 1,298 in Chikwawa, 248 in Chiradzulu, 1,348 in Blantyre, 842 in Balaka, 1,034 in Zomba, 293 in Thyolo and 669 in Nsanje.
Malawi commenced mass registration of its citizens in 2017 and the national ID has become one of the most crucial possessions for citizens to access services such as banking, voting and farm input subsidies.
