By: Clarke Ezekiel Geeplay|Montserrado County Correspondent ezekielgeeplay.105.5@gmail.com
Montserrado County,Monrovia- March 19, 2025- The National Identification Registry(NIR) is under spotlight for generating millions of Liberian dollars from national cards without explicit accountability, but the has Registry justified its collection of service fees;adding that whatever amount it is currently generating is being used for maintenance and other operational services.
The decision of the Registry to collect fees for national ID is a violation of the act that created the registry. According to the act, national ID cards should be issued to Liberians free of charge. In spite of this, money generated from the ID cards have not been placed directly into government revenue coffer as it ought to be but rather, being used for operational expenses; though the government is being funding the registry’s operations via the national budget annually.
NIR Finance comptroller Rolando K. Woheel in an interview with our reporter, said funds generated from cards are used for printing, maintenance and other related activities.
Comptroller Woheel furthered that in 2020 when he took over at the Registry, he met the institution in a struggling shape in running its affairs with huge financial constraints. According to him, cards are issued in three categoriies, with variance of service fees.
“We have three categories, citizens, ECOWAS residents and non ECOWAS residents. For the citizens we charge $5.00 USD, ECOWAS residents is $10.00 USD and Non ECOWAS residents is $20.00USD,” he said.
Comptroller Woheel also confirmed, that the act creating the NIR make it clear that card should be given free of charge, but added that service fees was introduced as a result of challenges from the government to fully support the Registry financially.
“The introduction of the $5.00 USD came into being to see how best operational cost be raised outside government funding as far as the registry’s activities are concerned. In addition,it was meant to the aid the entitiy’s contractors;specifically in production and printing the cards”, Comptroller Woheel added.
In attemp to provide further justification for fees the enity is collecting,the NIR Finance Comptroller said government annual budgetary support to the registry is very limited, adding that generated fund from the cards is usually used to top up the registry budget in running daily activities.
“Our 2024 budget is around $800,000 USD gross covering salaries, good and services, it is very limited,” he intoned.
Woheel,however was quick in stating that the NIR in keeping with the Public Financial Management Law of Liberia provides quarterly financial reports to the Ministry of Finance Development Planning and have a resident desk of the Internal Audit Agency, ensuring proper transparency and accountability.
“We do financial statement reports that catalogued all of our financial spending and generated revenues coverage quarterly and timely submit to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning,” Comptroller Woheel indicated.
Relative to revenues generated by the NIR since the inception of President Joseph N. Boakai administration, it is estimated amount of $300,000 USD covering the entire country according to Woheel.
Currently, According to Woheel, the NIR database has captured and classified over 700,000 persons who are have registered card holders out of a total population of approximately 5.3 millions people in the country.
Statistically,this represents only 13.2 % of those who have enrolled in the national identification exercise; an abandoned source of additional revenue in the face of global slow down in budgetary aid support for least developming countrries like Liberia.
That said, the Liberia Revenue Authority is government agency assigned with the responsibility to collect all legitimate revenues of the country. But when contacted, the LRA through it Communications Manager Danicuis K. Sengbeh, said the US$5.00 for the NIR Card is not collected by his entity; LRA and as such, the proceed does not go to the General Revenue Account.
“The LRA said does not collect these funds, and therefore, we cannot account for money that we neither collect nor manage,”LRA Communications Manager Sengbeh said.
According to the LRA Communication Manager, the NIR, like other government Ministries, Agencies, and commissions, pays withholding taxes on employee salaries and wages, and the NIR to the best of his knowledge , fulfilling this obligation.
As for the ID cards fees, the LRA said the US$5.00 reportedly covers the cost of printing and related services, with the amount going to the service provider. “We will verify this information and provide additional details as they become available”the LRA spokesman explained.
Meanwhile, Activist Mark Gray, in a recent interview with investigative reporters wants funding generated from the national ID cards be deposited into government revenue and ultimately be decided upon by the national government through the national budget.
Activist Gray who currently served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Liberia Institute for Peace and Sustainable Development voiced out his disappointment: “I think there have been lot of mistakes along the way.Whatever money is being generated as fees for ID cards should be deposited into government coffer,” he expressed.
Gray pointed out that such money when deposited and decided upon in line with Public Financial Management Laws could address crucial initiatives that could aid the Registry for advance improvement.
“The NIR cannot be generated fees for cards and at the same time managing it. Who will be responsible to give proper accountability” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Gray is at the same time calling on the Government of Liberia for the cancellation of allowing some of its entities managing their own generated revenues, this he believes when done will provide the space for proper accountability and transparency in the public sector.
Information uncovered by our investigation shows that since the creation of the NIR by law in 2017, the Registry have generated approximately $1,700,64000.00 USD in six years.
Such amount is being held within the Registry instead of being deposited into central government account, something that is raising serious concerns among Liberians whose desire for transparency and for proper accountability as well as hollistic national development is on the increase.
However, every effort to get a word from Internal Affairs Minister Francis Nuymalin who chairs NIR board as to whether the Registry has been providing quarterly financial reports as indicated never materialize following multiple engagements up to press time.
When contacted for comment, Sinoe County Senator Crayton Duncan; the Senate Chairman on Autonomous Agencies, said he is not aware of such happening, adding that he will do follow up in oder to get an insight on the issue.
The National Identification Registry is an autonomous agency within the Executive Branch of the Government of Liberia. It was created by an Act of the National Legislature in 2011.
In 2017, the NIR entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) and the Civil Service Agency (CSA) for the biometric enrollment of the employees of the Government of Liberia.
The primary objective of this partnership was to use the unique identification attributes of the Registry to remove ‘ghost’ names from the GoL payroll.
“To meet the challenge of enrolling all citizens and residents into the National Biometric Identification System (NBIS), we operate 23 Enrollment Centers across the country, including locations in the capital city of each county.” as indicated on the registry’s website.
Edited: Jesefu Morris Keita |Editor-In-Chief
