KEETMANSHOOP – Deputy Director of Civil Registration in the home affairs ministry Brandon Boois said 2 760 people have received identity documents since the mass registration for national documents started in the ||Kharas region.

The registration process started on 5 February this year and ends today.

Boois shared these statistics during a consultative and information-sharing meeting on the mass registration with various stakeholders on Monday. A total of 761 new identification cards have been issued to individuals who turned 16, while 817 duplicates have been issued since the process started.

“We issued 195 timely registration birth certificates and 188 late registration birth certificates. We have converted 23 South African identification cards into Namibian identification cards. When the process started, the ministry was targeting to serve at least 50 000 people, and we are standing today at 104 871, so we have doubled what we targeted,” Boois added.

Home affairs deputy minister Lucia Witbooi said the law to address the issue of undocumented and stateless people will be passed soon, and she hopes that such a law will be passed before the regional and local authority elections next year. Witbooi added that during the mass registration, the ministry collected information and fingerprints of those who are stateless and undocumented to profile them and set up a database.

“We should also understand that in Namibia, we do not have a law that allows for dual citizenship, so people have to go back to their countries and renounce their citizenship from the country of origin before they can be issued with Namibian citizenship. Everything we do will be within a framework of legislation and only an act of Parliament can address the issue,” she said.

Witbooi further raised concern over the uncollected identification cards that pile up at the ministry’s offices, urging those who have applied for such documents to collect them. At the Keetmanshoop office, at least 2 000 identification cards have not been collected.

“National documents are very important since they contribute to the sense of belonging as well as establish one’s identity. The ministry is urging mothers to register their babies immediately after birth, and fathers, please support the mothers in this regard by providing the necessary information,” she stressed. 

–Nampa