MONROVIA, Montserrado – The National Identification Registry is urging all employees and civil servants of government ministries and agencies to register and obtain their biometric ID cards to validate names on the government’s payroll.

Speaking on Thursday April 5, 2018 at the regular press briefing of the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs, and Tourism in Monrovia, Director General J. Tiah Nagbe said that soon, all those receiving government salaries and pensions would be required to register with the registry to bring about better transparency.

“We need the 80,000 plus employees registered to our database,” he said, adding that it would help eradicate the phenomenon of ‘ghost’ employees – individuals on the payroll who may not exist.

Nagbe said the process for receiving a national ID is thorough and requires applicants to provide a variety of documents, including birth certificate, passport, or voter registration ID.

Applicants also go through an interview with the Liberia Immigration Service to verify the validity of the documents.

Since the process of enrolling the public into the system began in November of last year, Nagbe said the registry had enrolled 9,012 individuals into its database.

He said the entity is working on expanding its operations to the various counties to ensure that they can register about 6,000 individuals per day.

“But to do this, we rely on you for the support because we can’t do it alone,” he said.

The National Identification Registry is an autonomous agency established by law to create and manage a National Biometric Identification System for all citizens and residents.

Featured photo by Tobin Jones/AU UN IST PHOTO