The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is about to issue national identity cards to its population for the first time. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) has signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow the transfer of enrollment devices, cartographic data and collection equipment to the National Office for Population Identification (ONIP) and the the National Institute of Statistics (INS), which will be responsible for the identification and general census of the population.
During the signing ceremony, Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde stressed the importance of this step, not only for Congolese citizens, but also for the government and the President of the Republic, Félix Tshisekedi. The latter had promised to provide each citizen with a national identity card and to provide the country with reliable statistics on its demography.
The issuance of these national identity cards is an important step for the DRC, which has not carried out a scientific census of its population since 1984. The transfer of data from the CENI to the ONIP and the INS thus opens the way to the forthcoming delivery of these national identity cards to the population.
This pooling of identification and general population census operations is the result of collaboration between CENI, ONIP and INS, who were able to overcome the difficulties encountered in the field to reach this agreement. CENI staff and managers will thus make themselves available to ONIP and INS to carry out these operations.
The Prime Minister urged the stakeholders in this process to redouble their efforts to complete this important step, which will allow each Congolese citizen to have a national identity card.