DR Congo Yearns For End To Long Wait For New ID Cards
Published: 16/Jun/2023
Source: AFP
By David MUKENDI
Congolese voters are hoping the government keeps its promise to produce new ID cards for the first time in decades after preparations for December elections finally offered them official documents.
National ID cards were last issued in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s, when the country was called Zaire and ruled by longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
The vast Central African nation is home to around 100 million people, many of whom have no official documentation — apart from their freshly issued voter cards.
Between December 2022 and April, Congolese citizens of voting age registered on electoral lists in dedicated centres which gave them cards covered with a plastic film, a photograph and a QR code.
But as many Congolese have no passport, driving licence or professional card, the small piece of cardboard is their only official ID document.
Elderly Congolese nostalgically remember their old “citizen’s identity card”, but they were cancelled in 1997 after Seko was overthrown by rebels led by former president Laurent-Desire Kabila.
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