By Ben Musanje
The National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has officially ended parish-level registration and services, marking the close of one of Uganda’s biggest national ID exercises.
The announcement was made on Monday by NIRA Registrar Claire Ollama during a press conference held at Police Headquarters in Naguru.
According to Ollama, the exercise, which began on May 27, 2025, was initially scheduled to last six months. She explained that it was later extended by three more months and finally ended on February 8, 2026. She confirmed that enrollment of persons and access to services at parish level had officially closed.
The registration drive aimed to migrate data from the old system to a new one, enroll millions of Ugandans, renew expired national IDs, correct personal details, and issue physical cards to eligible citizens.
Ollama revealed that all data from the old system had been fully migrated, achieving a 100 percent success rate, and that more than 28.5 million records were now safely stored in the new national identification system.
She added that NIRA had managed to renew or update over 14 million national IDs, representing a 90.5 percent achievement, noting that many of those who had not renewed their IDs might have relocated or passed away.
However, Ollama admitted that the exercise performed poorly in registering children. She stated that out of a target of 17.2 million new enrollments, mostly minors, only 37.3 percent had been registered. She pointed out that this area remained a serious gap since children depended on parents or guardians to access registration services.
Despite the challenges, Ollama indicated that Uganda’s national register now contained over 35 million citizens, all uniquely identified through biometric data.
She also disclosed that millions of national ID cards remained uncollected. NIRA had printed over 10 million cards, dispatched 7.2 million to districts, but only about 2 million had been picked up, leaving more than five million cards idle across the country.
With the parish phase now closed, Ollama explained that all NIRA services had been moved back to district offices, which would operate under the normal government system, while special service points would remain in place for Kampala and Wakiso due to high demand.
She urged citizens to read their SMS notifications carefully to know where to collect their cards and emphasized the importance of parents prioritizing child registration.
Ollama concluded by stating that NIRA was committed to ensuring every Ugandan was accounted for and that the authority would now focus on clearing the backlog of uncollected IDs and strengthening child registration nationwide. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
