AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE National Identification Authority (NIDA) has transferred 25 staff to new duty stations and others assigned different duties, towards enhancing efficiency.
The move comes three days after Minister for Home Affairs George Simbachawene said he would undertake a comprehensive reshuffle within the authority that would see underperforming staff transferred to new duty stations.
Speaking at a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, NIDA Director-General, Dr Anorld Kihaule said that transferred staff were from various cadres.
“The changes have involved some high-rank officials and other officials and have been implemented per the rules, regulations and procedures of public service; this transfer is an implementation of government directives by Minister Simbachawene,” he noted.
Dr Kihaule assured Tanzanians that despite these changes, NIDA would continue to fulfill its obligations to register and issue National Identification Cards to Tanzanian citizens and legal residents.
So far, as of March 27, 2020, about 21 million people have been identified and registered out of 27 million targeted people; 17.8 million people have National Identification Number (NIN) and 6 million people have been issued with the Identity Cards.
On April 1, 2020, Mr Simbachawene said the government purchased a new machine that would facilitate quick issuance of national identity cards after the previous one failed to operate and caused long queues at NIDA offices.
He said the 8.5bn/- machine will start operations by the end of this month and will have a capacity to produce 9,000 IDs per hour.
According to the minister, NIDA targets to identify and register 27.8 million Tanzanians, refugees living in the country and resident immigrants countrywide.
He also said that within the short period he had been in office, he had received several complaints from the public over dissatisfaction with the way NIDA officials treated them.
He directed all regional and district commissioners to make sure that they closely supervised NIDA officials in their areas to ensure that they discharged their duties effectively.
The major shakeup at NIDA has come almost four months since President John Magufuli publicly expressed his disappointment with the slow pace at which the National Identification Authority was conducting the registration process.
While addressing residents at Msamvu area in Morogoro in November last year on his way to Dodoma, President directed Nida Director General Mr Arnold Kihauleto open registration offices across the country in a bid to make sure that the exercise was smoothly implemented.
He issued the directives after one of the residents told the president that most of the citizens were forced to travel long distances to be registered because the registration centres were only located at district headquarters.
One of the residents told the president that most of them had failed to register for the national IDs due to the costs that they were forced to incur.
The president, who, at that very occasion spoke to the Nida director general on the phone, ordered Nida to make sure that registration centres were opened at each district council headquarters across the country.
