Simcard registration not helpful in fighting crime, says minister
Security minister Mary Karooro Okurut speaks at the launch of the issuance of national IDs for greater Bushenyi districts at Bushenyi Stadium on Monday. PHOTO BY ZADOCK AMANYISA
Bushenyi- Security minister Mary Karooro Okurut has stressed the need by government to streamline simcard registration in order to make it reliable in fighting crime.
Speaking at the launch of the issuance of national IDs for greater Bushenyi districts on Monday, Ms Karooro said registered simcards have so far been manipulated by criminals.
“A person murders someone here in Bushenyi and checking the phone registration status, you find that it belongs to an old woman deep in the village which makes it hard to track the killers,” she said at Bushenyi Stadium.
“Simcard registration should be streamlined like the way we are streamlining identity cards in order to be secure. Such people who cause insecurity will easily be cracked down,” she added.
Speaking at the function, Internal Affairs minister Aronda Nyakairima attributed the late delivery of the cards to the rigorous verification exercise in order to identify non-Ugandans.
“Since 1960s, we have been receiving large numbers of refugees from neighbouring countries and many have stayed here for long. They all claimed citizenry and it was really hard for us to ascertain their citizenry and this cost us a lot of time. We (also) wanted to avoid fake technology,” said Gen Nyakairima.
He also said the next round of identity cards would have a chip bar to enable the citizens use the card for banking, shopping and travel.
