The Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety, and Security (MoHAISS) has concluded a five-day outreach program in which residents in the Zambezi Region have been applying for duplicate identity cards.

The exercise targeted inhabitants along the Chobe and surrounding areas of Nakabolelwa, Ngoma, Ioma, Mutikitila, and Ibbu to allow them a chance to apply for new ID duplicates free of charge.

Speaking to the nbc News team at Mutikitila, the Regional Chief of Administration in the Ministry, Simon Tapelo, says a lack of a system to trace the profiles of people hampers the issuance of national documents.

"We are not having a system whereby we can go in the system and check the profiles of these people, just to make sure these people acquired an ID through different types of citizenship, either by birth, marriage, or naturalization, and that makes it difficult for us to help such a person."

He assured the residents that they would all be assisted during the five-day outreach program.

"The time frame for this program is short. As you might have observed, even when you were here, there was some kind of commotion; people were fighting, you know, to win over others, which is impossible because its 'first come, first served'."

Despite all that, residents were happy about the outreach program.

Tapelo is hoping that IDs will be ready within three weeks to enable the residents to receive their monthly grants.