Maryland County’s district #3 Representative, Chairman of the Maryland County Legislative Caucus, Isaac B. Roland, has accused the Executive Director of the National Identification Registry (NIR), J. Tiah Nagbe, of issuing national identification cards free of charge while at the same time complaining about budgetary constraint; Mercy M. Kpaingbay writes.
In Representative Roland’s communication to plenary, he stated that, during the 2020/2021 budget deliberation, in his address to the House of Representatives Nagbe had appealed for full budgetary support to his institution because, according to him, low budget was causing the NIR not to implement its mandate as required by law.
But the Maryland County lawmaker stated that the NIR cannot continue to cry for low budgetary support while its Executive Director is at this time issuing free ID cards.
The lawmaker asserted that it is unacceptable for the National Identification Registry’s boss to be appealing to the National Legislature for full budgetary support in the national budget but is issuing thousands of national ID cards to people free of charge.
Representative Roland described the act by the NIR boss as causing the Government of Liberia (GOL) to lose thousands of United States dollars in revenue, and that it has the propensity of rendering the NIR paralyzed in its mandate as well as causing the institution to end up in the hands of foreigners.
The Maryland County district #3 representative also asked the plenary of the House of Representatives to invite the NIR boss to appear in session to provide reasons for issuing free national ID cards in Maryland County, especially now that he has officially declared his intent to contest the 2023 general and presidential elections.
A motion was made by Rivercess County Representative, Rosanna Shack, that the NIR boss appears on next week Tuesday to address himself to the allegation.