North Bougainville is the 20th District to sign an agreement with the PNG Civil & Identity Registry to facilitate the roll-out of the NID program.
An initial commitment of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Kina has been set aside to help in the establishment of a NID office in Buka in the coming weeks.
According to North Bougainville MP, William Nakin, there are four main reasons for North Bougainville to enter into this partnership for an NID facility in Buka.
- Accessibility and Cost Savings for people wishing to register
- Passport requirements, as NID is now a compulsory requirement for international travel documents
- Valid Updated Statistics and information and data for proper planning and development, and to
Allow Students to Register for NID and be eligible for the National Government High Education Loans Program (HELP).
“Although the office will be in North Bougainville, it is also accessible for those from Central and South Bougainville,” Mr Nakin said.
Despite a cut in their National Budget Allocation for this year, the PNGNID Project remains optimistic of reaching its target of registering 1.5 million Papua New Guineans over the next twelve months.
And with through partnership, they are expected to go into full swing to meet this target, with a NID team expected to visit Buka by next weekend to begin preparations for the establishment of a facility in Buka.
“On the average, the startup cost is usually on the infrastructure that we need to build to facilitate the district operations. At that this point in time, it would require about 5 workstations, with cameras and registration kits. We are hoping that before too long we will be testing out some new technology to see how it fits in to make our work much easier and faster – to reduce the registration time,” Registrar General Noel Mobiha said.
