02/06/2026
PRESS STATEMENT
June 2, 2026
Members of the press, the National Identification Registry welcomes all of you, and wishes to thank the government and the general Liberian public for the great support given to the NIR and LTA over the years.
Today, the NIR wishes to make a few clarifications to matters of concern to the institution relative to the wave of misleading information being circulated by some media outlets concerning the NIR concession with the top Austrian firm, OSD.
The National Identification Registry is the government institution responsible for designing and running the National Biometric Identification System (NBIS) of Liberia, and enrolling and issuing every Liberian Citizen and legal resident a secure, unique identity through the National ID Card.
Our work is about inclusion, service delivery, national security, and making sure no one is invisible in Liberia.
The Registry’s activities support access to essential services, banking, telecoms, elections, and social protection, while protecting identities with advanced biometric technology.
We want to categorically state for the record that information circulating in the corridors of some news networks that the government of Liberia has outsourced the NIR to the Austrian firm OSD is false, misleading, and a calculated attempt to undermine the gains that are being made.
The government of Liberia, through the National Identification Registry, submitted a proposal for a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for a major corporate investment in the NIR System.
That investment will provide funding to modernize the NIR and the NBIS in terms of ICT equipment and system capability, logistics, and a mass enrollment rollout plan to enroll the entire population in about 18 months.
In 2025, the President of Liberia constituted a steering committee that worked with the NIR to deliver on this process.
Let it be established that all processes leading to the concession met all the requirements established by the PPCC.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG OR SECRET ABOUT THIS PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT, contrary to what is speculated in the public.
According to Section 102 (d) of the amended and restated PPCC ACT of 2026, under the title: Sole Source and Unsolicited Bids, A Concession may be granted on a sole source basis only upon a determination by the Cabinet, after consultation with the Commission, that sole source procurement is the only reasonable way of obtaining the resource controlled by the bidder, and one or more of the following conditions is determined to exist: (d) The Concession is in respect of strategic national interest or national defense or security, and it is not in the national interest to have more than one bidder.
The NIR is aware that the issue surrounding national identification and data protection is a matter of national security under international law, our laws, and practices.
Now, we want to assure the public of the following: a). That the data of the NIR is the sole property of the Republic of Liberia, b). That the Austrian firm OSD will only provide technical solution to the NIR System (NBIS) while the NIR will do the enrollment and keep the data, c).That the details surrounding the NIR's Partnership agreement are not secret and the public will be informed in details upon its finalization and ratification by the National Legislature.
At the moment, this is all the information we can provide. The public will be notified appropriately as the process progresses.
In closing, we encouraged the public to only listen to information from NIR'S verifiable channels, as the Registry is building a system where every Liberian counts, every identity matters, and no one is left behind.
Thank you very much.
Signed:________________
Daniel Sloh Sargbe
Communication Director
NIR
