INRIS DISASTER: WHAT WILL HICHILEMA EVER GET RIGHT?- Fred M’membe

INRIS DISASTER: WHAT WILL HICHILEMA EVER GET RIGHT?

There’s no doubt that Mr Hakainde Hichilema and his inept and corrupt league have failed to efficiently, effectively, and in an orderly manner implement the Intergrated National Registration Information System (INRIS) project whose overall objective was to improve civil registration and identity management processes through digitisation and automation.

A lot of money has already been carelessly and fraudulently spent on this clearly failed project, which they have corrupted in an attempt to enrich themselves and manipulate the country’s electoral process to fraudulently keep themselves in power beyond 2026.

Instead of wasting more money and risking plunging this country into electoral chaos, we demand that the project be stopped immediately and a credible audit of it be instituted. The country deserves to know the truth about what is going on with this project? Why is this government so inclined to do wrong things? What will Mr Hichilema ever do well with sufficient honour and integrity?

The specific objectives of INRIS included, among other things, the following:

1. To digitise the management of civil registration and national identity in Zambia.

2. To link the management of civil registration and issuance of national identity cards.

3. To create a centralised biometric enabled national database of citizens and non-citizens living in Zambia.

4. To issue biometric enabled identification cards.

5. To resolve the civil registration and identity management problems associated with the current manual systems (for example, centralised certification, low birth, and death registration coverage, among others).

6. To electronically integrate stakeholder institutions to the INRIS system for verification purposes.

7. To decentralise certification services for civil identity documents.

These appear to be noble objectives that have been frustrated by greed, incompetence, and political dishonest. Unfortunately, we have to wait for more honest leadership and government to realise these objectives.

In the meantime, we demand that the project be halted immediately, with a trustworthy audit conducted, and the public be told the truth about it.

Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party