The Democratic Republic of Congo has recently taken an important step in issuing national identity cards. Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde presided over the official signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding between the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), the National Office for Population Identification (ONIP) and the National Institute of Statistics (INS). This signature symbolizes the transfer of enrollment devices, cartographic data and collection material by the CENI to the other two institutions.
This transfer of data is an important step that will allow the Congolese population to obtain a national identity card, but also to provide the country with reliable statistics on its demography. Indeed, since 1984, the DRC has not carried out a scientific census of its population. This is therefore a considerable challenge for the Congolese authorities.
The Head of Government urged the stakeholders in this process to redouble their efforts in order to achieve the assigned objectives. For his part, Denis Kadima, president of the CENI, praised the determination of the Prime Minister, who knew how to stay the course despite the difficulties encountered on the ground.
This progress towards the issuance of national identity cards is good news for the Congolese, who will now be able to benefit from the advantages offered by an identity card, particularly in terms of voting, but also for access to certain public services. . This project is also a strong symbol of the DRC authorities’ desire to modernize their country and meet the identification needs of their population.
Ultimately, this signing of the memorandum of understanding between the CENI, the ONIP and the INS is an important step in the process of issuing national identity cards in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, there is still work to be done for this project to see the light of day, but this progress testifies to the desire of the Congolese authorities to modernize their country and meet the needs of their population.