Govt warns against fraud in NRCs issuance
IT is a serious crime to fraudulently obtain a National Registration Card (NRC) or represent undeserving individuals to acquire it, the Ministry of Home Affairs has warned.
Public relations officer in the ministry of Home Affairs, Nephas Chifuta said as the mobile registration commences next month, only eligible Zambian citizens should obtain NRCs.
In an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Chifuta warned that those who would want to try to obtain the NRC dubiously, and those aiding them risked being jailed.
He urged the stakeholders including parliamentarians, traditional leaders and parents to ensure only eligible Zambian citizens who had attained the age of 16 years were issued with NRCs.
“Any person that shall try to obtain or represent undeserving individual for the purpose of acquiring an NRC shall be committing a serious crime and will be reliable for prosecution before the courts of law,” Mr Chifuta warned.
Mr Chifuta explained that the mobile registration exercise which was scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2020 would only take place from August to October this year.
He said the exercise would be conducted in a two phased approach of 40 days each due mostly to time constraints.
Mr Chifuta said phase one of mobile registration would cover Luapula, Northern, North-Western, Copperbelt and Eastern Provinces, while phase two would cover Western, Southern, Lusaka, Central and Muchinga Provinces respectively.
He said the Ministry had projected to issue approximately 1.5 million NRCs during the 2020 mobile registration exercise.
He said 770,000 NRCs were projected to be issued in phase one, and 730,000 in phase two.
Mr Chifuta reiterated that the rationale for conducting the periodic mobile registration exercise was to effectively provide increased accessibility to national identity documents to Zambian citizens who have attained the age of 16 years and those whose cards need replacement.