Some Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) officers can now boast of being bona fide Malawian citizens unlike their friends and colleagues after they registered for national identity cards in the pilot phase of the national registration exercise.

Officers at Lilongwe Domestic Taxes Office were all smiles and jubilant as officials from the National Registration Bureau (NRB) registered them for national identity cards on Thursday, February 2, 2017.

This followed a memo, dated 31st January, 2017, from the Secretary for Home Affairs and Internal Security to the Station Manager, Lilongwe Domestic Taxes, Skazo Mwanda, informing him of the registration exercise.

“I write to inform you that the National Registration Bureau is implementing a pilot phase for the registration and issuance of a National Identity Card to selected citizens in the country.

“For this reason, some citizens from selected MDAs (Ministries, Departments and Agencies) have been earmarked for registration and the NRB intends to collect their biometric information,” the memo reads.

Officers from Lilongwe Domestic Taxes were asked to prove their Malawian citizenship to qualify for registration by presenting a number of required documents whose cumulative value should be 100 percent or more.

Such documents included letter of testimony from village headman, voter ID, driving license, ordinary Malawi passport, Malawi diplomatic passport, tax certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificate and employment ID card among others. 

Ester Mbengwa was one of the officers to be registered for the national identity cards and she could not hide her excitement.

“I am so delighted to be one of the first people to be registered for the national identity cards. I have just been hearing about it and I didn’t expect to be considered for the pilot phase. It’s a very important document and I am happy to have it,” she said.

Her colleague Thokozani Chinzimu was equally excited to be among the first MRA officers to have a national identity card.

“It’s a good development. This makes me feel more Malawian and a bona fide citizen of this country. National identity cards will help us with voter registration and passport applications,” she said.

Head of Corporate Affairs Steven Kapoloma expressed gratitude to NRB for including MRA in the pilot phase for the registration and issuance of a National Identity Card to selected citizens in Malawi.

“This is a welcome development and we are excited that some of our colleagues have been registered for national identity cards,” he said.

NRB is implementing the national registration exercise in phases and a total of 5,000 Malawian citizens will be registered in the first phase before the exercise is rolled out across the country.

BY WADZA OTOMANI