The National Registration Bureau (NRB) says National Identity Cards (IDs) for people registered in the third phase of the national registration exercise will be ready by December, 2017.
Speaking on Wednesday, Public Relations Officer for the bureau, Norman Fulatira, said in the month of November, they expect identity cards for the second phase [to arrive in the country] and distribution will start from November 20th.
“Hopefully IDs for the third phase should be arriving in the country in December 2017,” said Fulatira.
He however urged Malawians to exercise patience when the exercise starts as not all the cards may arrive at once.
“What Malawians need to know is that cards are arriving in batches. This therefore, means a batch can or cannot have all the cards for a particular phase.
“What may likely happen is that, at a time, a batch may be sent and some records could still be under the process. As such, cards will still come in subsequent batches,” he said, referring to Kasungu where some IDs were yet to be printed out, a situation that led to panic.
However the Nation Registration Bureau Publicist could not disclose how many people would get their cards from this phase saying only when the consignment has arrived that is when they would disclose the figures.
“We are sure that whatever may happen, at the end of the day every Malawian who registered will get his or her card,” Fulatira stressed.
The bureau has also made it public that Malawians will get their cards through the centres they registered from.
A total of 2.2 million Malawians representing 98.5 per cent registered in the third phase. This included districts of Blantyre, Nsanje, Thyolo, Mulanje, Mwanza, Neno and Chiradzulu.
