By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Director General of the National Civil Registration Commission (NaCRA), Mohamed Massaquoi says they hope to wrap up the process of preparing the national register in four months.
This week the commission announced the opening of the verification process for personal information. The data was collected during the 2017 registration process for the 2018 elections.
“It is hoped that this event will be computed in the coming four months and will hold a new dawn in our nation where the burden of manual record search will be ameliorated and electronic record aiding search of vital records into the use that will support government’s fight against identity fraud and duplication of identity,” Massaqoui said on Thursday, during the government’s weekly press briefing.
The verification process will start today on Monday in Freetown and different dates have been set for other areas in the provinces.
According to Massaqoui the essence of the exercise is to put an end to the duplication of personal record of people and their dynamism making them susceptible to changes to suit their needs regardless of the embarrassment at the international level as well as aiding corruption, abuse, identity fraud and security checks.
“The confirmation of registrants’ personal details and the registration of the remaining population are critical events in the development of the multipurpose permanent civil register. The government of Sierra Leone through the national Civil Registration Commission with support from development partners notably the European Union, the embassy of Ireland and the United Nations Development Program have commenced a critical event in the development of the civil register in line with the guidelines set by the United Nations and other international organization” he explained.
That, he went on, “is the digitization of national events for which the authority is mandated to cover including birth and death dating back to 1800”.
NaCRA said that a team of their staff and civil society were currently engaging communities to sensitize them about the importance of the register and confirming their details.
Massaqoui said gathering every useful data and statistic, when collated, used and disseminated regularly and in a consistent manner, would guide policy and planning and inform decision making.
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