In a number of instances processing of already queued applications was discontinued in order to enable staff focus on activities that were considered more urgent. These activities are usually unplanned but have a direct impact on the processing of already queued applications. Examples of such activities included mandatory registration of SIM cards, verification of pensioners on the government payroll and registration of learners. These were given priority over other applications in the system sometimes leading to accumulation of backlogs.199 Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, there is the issue of funding. NIRA appears to be consistently underfunded. Despite recurrent complaints that NIRA is perpetually under-resourced, a great deal has actually been invested in the system. Based on our own calculations of publicly available data, we believe that the government of Uganda has spent at least 745 billion UGX (approximately $206 million USD using current exchange rates) on the national ID system since 2010.200 While we have calculated this number using all publicly available data, we have found a glaring lack of fiscal transparency about this project which suggests that this number is likely an underestimation. For instance, the 2011 contract with Mühlbauer cannot be fully ‘seen’ in the budget expenditures throughout the years and the formal procurement process was ‘bypassed’. A worrying trend is that the massive capital investment early on appears to have tapered off significantly, which suggests that political will to properly fund the system is declining. This problem is only likely to increase as the ‘newness’ of the national ID system wears off and we move away from media-friendly mass registration drives to the far less exciting work of keeping the national ID system functional. NIRA officials have regularly complained that they have not been able to hire adequate staff or obtain proper equipment, an issue that has been even more evident as they try to expand their footprint to a decentralised model of service delivery. Out of 865 nationally authorized positions at NIRA, only 433 were filled.201 There have also been allegations of corruption.202 Budget issues have resulted in NIRA being unable to meet demands. On March 11, 2020, the Minister of Internal Affairs told Parliament that the NIRA Kololo office currently receives an average of 700 people daily but is only able to serve up to 400 of those who arrive.203 It has been extremely difficult for NIRA to make up for any of these budget shortfalls by generating its own revenue. The most lucrative line of NIRA’s work is meant to be providing identification services to resident aliens, whom they can charge high fees. But the administration has been extremely slow to expand registration services to these groups. Instead, NIRA is deriving the majority of its meagre revenue from replacing lost cards, issuing birth certificates, and responding to information access requests.204 In short, it is making most of its money off services provided to individual Ugandans, but poor Ugandans are unlikely to meet NIRA’s financial demands. An area where NIRA has outperformed in terms of revenue-generation has been in selling access to the NIR database to private corporations such as banks and telecom operators. In 2020, NIRA processed 87.7 million applications under its Access and Use of information protocols (including ID verification), mainly by private actors.205 A full accounting of the government’s cost, both monetary and non-monetary, is still not clear. There are a lot of hidden costs involved in running the Ndaga Muntu system that are outsourced to other government actors, international donors and civil society. For instance, the Ndaga Muntu operating model requires other ministries to pay to upgrade their How a National Security Approach to Uganda’s National Digital ID Has Led to Wholesale Exclusion of Women and Older Persons 71