Local Government officials at all sector levels have been equipped with knowledge on how to improve service delivery by using Irembo platform. The two-day training was organised by Irembo in partnership with ministry of Local Government (Minaloc) and National Identification Agency (NIDA). Robert Habimana the territory coordinator, of Rwanda Online noted that this workshop was to create a relationship with local government officials with Irembo agents to be able to use Irembo services with ease. “We want all the officers to have vast knowledge of the Irembo system to be able to better serve citizens and to coordinate with our agents in order to better help citizens in a faster manner with the help of the platform.” On Irembo, citizens are able to access services such as birth registration, marriage certificate, driving license applications, land registration and transfer. The target is to have 100 services digitized by 2018. Emmanuel Rugambage, the civil Registration and Notary Officer, Gasabo District, noted that the training was necessary to help local leaders from the sectors to come up with solutions for their challenges and better their knowledge around the platform. “This system is efficient, reliable, accurate, and easy to learn and work with. The training is going to help us a lot in analysing our day to day activities,” he said. During the meeting it was resolved that the executive secretaries at sector levels and civil registration officer will work together with NIDA so that some of the records can be digitalised so as to enable them have access to NIDA databases. “It is now going to be easier for us to access the NIDA system and get full access to information regarding the person seeking a certificate. This will reduce time and costs as some of the services done by NIDA can be done at the sector offices,” Rugambage said. In a previous meeting with sector leaders, some reported cases of mishandling book records, Rugambage noted. With the digital system citizens are assured of safety of their records. “There were instances where citizens would go to the sector offices to register a child, marriage or death but some are recorded on a paper. With Irembo, and access to NIDA system citizens will have to be directly registered online and records kept in the book at the same time as data in the book must be corresponding to the one in NIDA database.” “The good thing about logging into the system is that you can service anyone anywhere and anytime,” he said. Since July 2015, Rwandans have been able to apply and pay for Government services through Irembo. The platform is available online and on mobile with 32 services currently available to the public.
