Papua New Guinea is redoubling efforts to register its population in the National Identification (NID) system after a decade of sluggish progress. The PNG Civil & Identity Registry revealed that only 3.8 million residents have been registered since the NID project launched 10 years ago (out of an estimated 9+ million population).
To reach a government goal of 95 percent enrollment, acting Registrar-General Salome Bogosia announced plans to double the registry workforce from 500 to 1,000 employees next year. New hires, including fresh graduates, will help process a hefty backlog of unprinted ID cards and pending enrollments.
Bogosia cited familiar challenges in PNG: poor infrastructure, difficult geography, bad weather, plus misinformation and low public awareness hindered sign-ups, especially in rural areas. The Registry has turned to tech fixes like offline registration and data digitization to chip away at bottlenecks. In a public-private assist, energy firm Santos donated 120 mobile biometric kits to extend NID enrollment into remote communities.
PNG recently passed a new Civil Identity Registry Act (2024) making vital events registration compulsory and enabling biometric data sharing with agencies like the Electoral Commission. With a Digital Identity Policy approved last year and even a SevisPass digital ID pilot completed, PNG is laying groundwork for a future unified digital ID.
For now, the focus is clearing the NID paper backlog and getting IDs to the remaining roughly five million citizens without them. Officials hope that bolstering staff and tools will finally drive PNG’s registration rate into the high 90s in the next few years.
Source: The National (PNG)
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
