September 27, 2021
By Hafsatu Z Bangura
At a presser held on the 24th of September 2021 at the Ministry of Internal Affairs to inform the media and the general public on the proposed new national civil registration legislation and reformation of the system, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Lahai Lawrence Leema spoke about the new legislation and reformation of the National civil registration Authority (NCRA) and Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS).
Delegates from the European Union (EU), Irish Aid, Civil Society Organizations, representatives from National Revenue Authority (NRA) also dilated about the new legislation plans in changing and reviewing of the National Identity Cards (ID) Cards, Data Protection of the institution and citizen’s privacy and personal data, data collection legal reforms and strategic national plan.
In his statement the Deputy Minister said as a governance system the CRVS steering committee is vital for ensuring the policies and systems for CRVS to meet the best and standard practice and purpose as well.
“Making legal reforms recommended in the CRVS policy is geared towards fulfilling a comprehensive policy assessment conducted in 2019 and the five year strategic national plan for 2019-2023” he said.
“making legal reforms takes time to initiate, as terminal referencing in existing legal mandate calls for collegial negotiation and memoranda of understanding in implementing new mandate that clash with existing one, when all of these fail it becomes apparent that the new legislation to repel and amend previous provisions is necessary as well as to address lacunas in the current laws,” he added.
He further stated that the National Civil Registration Authority Act 2016 currently laps in mandate with other registration laws governing the country and notable among these are those concerning the provisions for marriage, divorce, and adoption registration process.
“It is however, been observed over the years that there is an urgent need for the Review of the NCRA Act of 2016 as certain circumstances faced in the implementation of the objective functions are not provided for by the said Act, that there is a seeming conflict with other legislations which were not expressly reviewed by the NCRA Act”, he noted.
Mr Leema mentioned that there is the absence of civil regulations which will clearly state out the requirement, procedures, fines, and fees for the registration of vital events and civil registrations generally and the non-existence of a National Identity Card (ID) registrations which will clearly set the regulations for clearing, obtaining and reviewing etc. of ID cards amongst other things.
He said these challenges precipitated the need for the review of the current NCRA Act and the development of regulations on civil registrations and ID management.
Additionally, he said data protection has always been a concern to our development partners and counterparts in Africa since the conception of the idea to initiate the integrated CRVS systems from the biometric electoral systems following the 2018 National elections.
The Minister concluded that the purpose of the data is not just to protect the individual data but to also protect the fundamental right and freedom of the individual that is related to the data.
The Director General of the National Civil Registration (NCRA) Mohamed Mubashir Massaquoi spoke on the gaps NCRA has in its registration process and regulations.
He said legal issues are important and the legal review of the NCRA Act and data protection law has commenced and that they owe as gratitude to the EU for leading the process of reviewing the Act.
Mr Massaquoi further draws the attention of government and other stakeholders and partners to the challenges in implementing the registration process.
He further stated that the NCRA has gone far in knowing and solving the gaps that is affecting them and added that the EU’s assessment is the country’s comprehensive assessment and that UNICEF, UNDP, IRISH AID and other partners have tremendously supported the NCRA in recent times.