Over 11 million people who submitted details of their Sim Cards to the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) for authentication have been positively verified, security Minister Lt. Gen. Henry Tumukunde has said.
Addressing the media at Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) offices in Bugolobi, Gen. Tumukunde said NIRA was yet to return positive results for details submitted for two million mobile phone users, and insisted that the card registration deadline, announced by the UCC about three weeks ago, will not be extended.
“The deadline for deactivation of unregistered sim-cards is May 19, 2017. For that matter, I don’t think we will have any issues or complaints,’’ Gen. Tumukunde said.
According to Gen. Tumukunde, the UCC will allocate a short code to NIRA to send bulk SMS to the public in a bid to know their registration status as well as increasing awareness on the status of IDs.
And reacting to the issue of cyber threats, Gen. Tumukunde said the government had recruited competent people and mobilized sufficient equipment to counter any infiltrators in the exercise that is aimed at curbing insecurity including planned assassinations.
Speaking at the briefing, UCC Executive Director Godfrey Mutabazi warned those trying to carry out multiple registration for the same number of dire consequences.
Meanwhile, Gen. Tumukunde has insisted on the non-existence of constitutionally-backed Local Councils is one of the threats to security in Uganda, adding however, that funds for LC polls will be catered for in the next financial year.
Tumukunde’s disclosure comes in the wake of government diverting money allocated for LC elections to the Ministry of Disaster and Preparedness to cater food for the dying victims of famine.
