KAMPALA, Uganda — The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) is holding more than 5.4 million newly printed national identity cards that citizens have yet to collect, MPs have been told.
The backlog is raising concerns over access to services that increasingly depend on national identification, including banking, mobile money, driving permits and civil registration.
NIRA Executive Director Rosemary Kisembo attributed much of the backlog to inadequate permanent staffing after the expiry of a temporary workforce recruited to support the country’s mass enrolment and national ID renewal exercise.
Kisembo was appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase).
She told MPs that NIRA has printed approximately 15.4 million new national identity cards, but only about 10 million have been issued, leaving roughly 5.4 million cards in the authority’s custody.
Staffing shortage blamed for ID backlog
NIRA has an approved staff establishment of 571 positions, but only 418 positions are currently filled. Of those, just 201 employees are directly involved in serving members of the public.
The authority relied heavily on temporary workers during the mass enrolment and renewal exercise, which began on May 27, 2025.
Between 9,800 and 12,000 temporary workers were deployed at different stages of the exercise, although the workforce fluctuated because of attrition.
Kisembo said the staffing constraints had made it difficult for NIRA to distribute the large number of cards already produced.
Even with additional temporary workers, she said, NIRA estimates that it would take approximately nine months to clear the existing card-distribution backlog if staff concentrated exclusively on issuing cards.
The authority is seeking approval to increase its permanent establishment from 571 to 998 positions, in addition to at least 2,700 temporary workers for 18 months.
The proposed expansion would support the renewal of identity cards for approximately six million people, registration of an estimated 10.9 million Ugandans who are not yet on the national register, processing changes to personal particulars and registration of births and deaths.
Temporary workers offer only short-term relief
For the current financial year, NIRA received approximately Shs15 billion for temporary staffing and recruited between 3,000 and 3,600 workers for three months at a daily rate of about Shs40,000.
Kisembo acknowledged that the arrangement would provide only temporary relief.
“At the end of three months, we shall go back to the point of 418 staff, of which 201 are client-facing,” she told the committee.
However, MPs questioned whether staffing shortages alone could explain the delays.
Cosase Deputy Chairperson and Kira Municipality MP George Musisi said inefficiencies and internal service standards could also be contributing to the problem.
“It is not just about the numbers of the staff… just picking a card, not registration, picking a card is problematic,” Musisi said, recounting his experience at a NIRA office.
Committee Chairperson Muwada Nkunyingi also raised complaints from citizens who had collected new national identity cards but were subsequently told that their details had not been activated or linked to other government systems.
ID delays affect driving permit applicants
Bungokho County South MP Geoffrey Wokuri highlighted the difficulties facing young people seeking driving permits.
He said payments made for driving training could expire while applicants waited for their identification details to become operational.
NIRA told the committee that the driving-permit system is still being integrated with the new identification platform, although an interim workaround is available.
The authority is also handling the transfer of marriage-registration records following the movement of the function from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) to NIRA.
NIRA inherits marriage records from URSB
NIRA inherited approximately 1.2 million physical marriage records stored in about 302 archival boxes that had previously been held off-site under a URSB contract.
Officials told MPs that NIRA had procured and migrated a system mirroring the former URSB platform following the transfer of marriage-registration responsibilities.
Also Read: NIRA begins issuing new national IDs: Here is what happens to your old card
“The system is the same. It was just moved from… URSB because now URSB doesn’t have a marriage function,” officials told the committee.
NIRA is now responsible for registering civil, church, customary, Hindu and Muslim marriages.
Uganda faces wider identification gap
The uncollected cards form part of a broader challenge facing Uganda’s national identification system.
NIRA estimates that about 10.9 million Ugandans remain outside the national register, while approximately six million people who are already registered have yet to renew their identity cards.
The figures underscore the scale of the task facing the authority as Uganda increasingly relies on national identification for access to government services and private-sector transactions.
NIRA is therefore seeking both a larger permanent workforce and additional temporary staff to address the immediate card backlog while expanding registration and renewal services.
The authority’s appearance before Cosase comes as MPs continue to scrutinise whether the country’s national identification system has the staffing, infrastructure and inter-agency integration required to serve millions of Ugandans efficiently.
