16 Mar 2020

 Residents of Letlhakeng have been encouraged to collect their Omang cards as the national identity Card is an important documentation for service provision in Botswana.

Speaking in an interview with BOPA recently, the Chief Registration Clerk Mr Nelson Ntoko revealed that 624 Omang cards were yet to be collected in the sub district, 415 of which were for Letlhakeng while 209 were for surrounding villages.

He said the office was worried that residents were dragging their feet on the issue of Omang cards collection.

Mr Ntoko said his office had observed that some people did not collect their Omang cards after finding the ones they had lost and stressed the importance of reporting such incidences so that the office could deal with such issues with the promptness it deserved.

The chief registration clerk further said the office experienced challenges with some elderly people who did not have birth certificates, and the office needed to attend to them anyway as they no longer need to attach a letter from the local authorities to the applications.

Mr Ntoko said most of the elders were from villages outside Letlhakeng among them being Tsetseng and Khekhenye.

He added that he was glad that the officers had been able to assist them to get their national identity cards while at the same time helping others to do away with the use of xx on their Omang and have proper dates of birth.

He said they visited surrounding villages quarterly to deliver Omang cards to residents and the initiative had proved to be valuable as all applicants came and collected their ID cards.

He further said during the visits residents had the opportunity to apply or renew their IDs, which made it easier to assist them accordingly.

Mr Ntoko suggested that Tsetseng residents should be assisted by Hukuntsi through their service centre in Kang for Omang services, more so that the national identity card had no boundaries compared to other services.

He beseeched the leadership consider this matter as it would shorten the distances that people had to travel to request for help. Ends