Bureau turns to national IDs for data consolidation

Credit Data Reference Bureau (CRB) has embarked on a harmonisation of personal identification for clients of different institutions in the country to ensure quality and reliable database.

The firm’s managing director Patricia Mwase said this last week in Lilongwe after signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Registration Bureau (NRB) to adopt the national identity (ID) card as the sole identification document.

She said the process will be gradual to ensure that it does not disadvantage any group of people, but later on other forms of identification will be scrapped off the CRB system.

She said: “We have been facing challenges to consolidate data in a system where multiple identification documents were used. Some people would deliberately use different IDs with different institutions and for us to provide accurate reports, we had to struggle to consolidate them.”

Mwase said with a single ID in the system, the bureau’s operations will be faster and more accurate than before and that its clients will find its services more useful.

On his part, NRB chief director Harry Kanjewe said they are happy that credible institutions such as CRB recognise the trustworthiness of the national IDs and take it as the most reliable identification document for vital data reconciliation.

He said the bureau is in the process of partnering with various government ministries, departments and agencies as well the private sector in the use of the national ID for identification.

“The biometric registration of eligible Malawians provides an opportunity for all government ministries, departments and agencies, including other institutions not public, to tap from this pool and reduce the burden of identifying clients,” said Kanjewe.

NRB rolled out mass national registration for all Malawian citizens from the age of 16 and above in 2017.

So far, 9.1 million Malawians have been registered and issued with a national ID and the exercise is ongoing through NRB district designated offices.

The exercise was funded by the Government of Malawi and development partners such as the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID), Norway, Irish Government, the European Union (EU), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United States Agency for International Development and United Nations Chidren’s Fund.n