ID card renewals outsourced to local councils to ‘ease the process’

Valletta – In a move that will bring government bureaucracy to village squares and parish steps, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri has announced that national ID card renewals will soon be handled directly by local councils. The pilot project, launching next month across ten councils from Birkirkara to Għarb, aims to slash waiting times and turn the dreaded “kartina” queue into a neighbourly chat over ħobż biż-żejt.

For decades, renewing the Maltese identity card meant a pilgrimage to the Evans Building in Valletta: a 6 a.m. wake-up call, a paper ticket that dissolved in summer sweat, and the faint hope that the photo booth hadn’t broken down again. The new system promises to swap that ordeal for a five-minute appointment at your own council office, complete with free parking and possibly a pastizz from the bar next door.

“It’s about dignity,” said Sandra Borg Vella, mayor of Żebbuġ since 2019. “Our elderly shouldn’t have to catch the 5:30 a.m. bus just to prove they still exist.” Her council will host one of the first pop-up enrolment stations, housed in a converted band club rehearsal room that still smells faintly of tuba wax. Residents who tested the service last week reported total processing times of under seven minutes, including the obligatory gossip with the clerk about whose grandson got engaged.

The cultural weight of the ID card in Malta cannot be overstated. Introduced in 1973, the laminated booklet—later downsized to credit-card format—became the key to everything from collecting social-security cheques to registering for festa tombola. Grandparents still recount how the first cards were issued in school halls, with nuns double-checking that every Joseph and Josephine spelled their surname the same way as on their baptism certificate. Today, the card doubles as a travel document within the EU, making it both a practical tool and a quiet emblem of island identity.

Under the new scheme, councils will be equipped with biometric kiosks supplied by MaltaPost, the same company that prints passports. Staff will receive two days’ training on facial-recognition software and, crucially, on how to explain to 90-year-olds why they can’t smile for the photo. Data is encrypted and transferred nightly to the central population register, keeping the process GDPR-compliant but still reassuringly local.

Early reactions suggest the shift could reinvigorate civic life. In Marsaxlokk, mayor hopeful Jerome Aquilina envisions “ID-and-inkwina mornings,” where residents renew their card, grab a coffee, and stay for a council feedback session. Meanwhile, environmental NGOs welcome the reduced need for cross-island car journeys, estimating a 12-tonne annual cut in CO₂ emissions once the service rolls out nationwide.

Not everyone is convinced. Opposition MP Karol Aquilina warned that understaffed councils may struggle during village festa season, when half the committee is busy erecting street decorations. But Camilleri counters that councils can hire temporary clerks using a €50 per-card processing fee paid by Identity Malta—money that stays in the community rather than disappearing into central-government coffers.

For many, the biggest win will be intangible: the erosion of that silent fear that the State is too remote to care. Pensioner Ġużepp Cassar, 78, emerged from the Żebbuġ pilot grinning like a schoolboy. “I renewed my card, and the mayor asked if the new paving outside my house was smooth enough,” he said. “When does that ever happen in Valletta?”

As the sun sets over the honey-coloured limestone of Republic Street, the Evans Building’s queues may finally shrink, replaced by the gentle hum of village life where bureaucracy meets community spirit. In Malta, it seems, even paperwork can have a heart—especially when the clerk remembers your nanna’s maiden name.