Type Parastatal | Founded 2015 | |
 | ||
Industry Registration of births and deaths Headquarters Independence Grounds
Kololo Airstrip
Kampala, Uganda Key people Judy Obitre–Gama
Executive Director Products National Identification Register, personal citizen identification cards, Personal alien identification cards, birth certificates, death certificates | ||
The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) is a government-owned organisation in Uganda, mandated to register births and deaths in the country and to develop a National Identification Register for both citizens and legally resident non-citizens. NIRA is also mandated to issue national identification numbers and cards for every citizen and lawfully admitted alien.
Contents
Location
The headquarters of the NIRA are temporarily located at Independence Park, Kololo Airstrip, on Kololo Hill, in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. The coordinates of Kololo Airstrip are 0°19'37.0"N, 32°35'34.0"E (Latitude:0.326955; Longitude:32.592787).
Overview
NIRA was created by the Ugandan parliament on 26 March 2015 in the law known as the Registration of Persons Act 2015. Before then, registration of personal vital data was gathered under various laws by different government agencies, including the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, the Electoral Commission, the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control, the Uganda Revenue Authority, various local governments, and others. To harmonize and standardize the collection of personal identifying information of all citizens and legally resident non-citizens, the Ugandan parliament empowered NIRA to be solely responsible for and to share that data with other government agencies that may require that data. NIRA is also specifically charged with developing a National Identification Register of the county's citizens and legally resident non-citizens.
As of April 2016, work on fully establishing the agency is continuing. A board of directors is yet to be fully constituted by the Minister of Internal Affairs. Registration of people between ages 0 and 16 years has not yet started. Mechanisms for registering Ugandans living and working outside Uganda are still being worked out. As at November 2015, there was no law authorizing the re-issuance of replacement cards to recipients who had lost the originals. At that time, over 16 million cards had been issued, but close to three million citizens had not picked up their IDs.
Governance
The executive director of NIRA is Judy Obitre–Gama, a lawyer, who was sworn in on 15 July 2015.