Ugandans to get IDs in two years

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

THE Government yesterday started the second phase of the registration exercise for issuing national identity cards (IDs).

Under this phase, a total of 10.5 million Ugandans who are already on the voters’ list will have their bio-data updated. They are expected to get their IDs in the next two years.

Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya was the first to be registered at his Kakiri home, where the national security information system under the internal affairs ministry launched the process.

The launch was done in conjunction with a German firm, Muhlbauer Technology Group, which will produce the IDs.

Bukenya said compiling data about all Ugandans that will lead to the issuance of the national IDs would help government to adequately plan for its citizens.

“Such data will guide the Government to inject more money into crucial sectors of the economy like education, health and drug disbursement to health centres,” a statement from the Vice-President’s office said.

The Government and Mühlbauer first unveiled the new national identity card at Hotel Africana in Kampala in April last year. The ID card will be made of polycarbonate (plastic) material. It will have visible features such as a picture of the card holder, a signature and date of birth, sex, card number, date of expiry, a thumbprint, the national flag and the map of Uganda.

It will also have additional invisible features such as tribe, clan, village, parish, district, details of spouses with provision of up to four wives and children.

The sh185b project is in two phases. The first registration exercise covered the new voters for the 2011 general elections and were expected to get their IDs by October 2010. The project, however, failed to take off.

Questions have, however, been raised about the project. Parliament and a section of government departments argue that the cost of the project was inflated.

Media reports last year quoted similar projects in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania, which cost sh53b and sh41b respectively, although they have larger populations.

Questions have also been raised about the procurement process. A tender for the IDs project was cancelled in 2005 by the Inspector General of Government (IGG) due to irregularities. The three bidders were South African Face Technologies, Indian Contec Global and an Israel company called Supercom. Mühlbauer Technology Group was not one of the bidders.

Instead, the German company bid for the Electoral Commission (EC) bio-metric voter registration last year.

However, the process was stopped by Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) in December due to irregularities in the evaluation process. PPDA advised the EC to re-evaluate the bid.

However, the commission did not follow this advice and abandoned the tendering process altogether.

In March 2010, the internal affairs ministry signed a contract with Mühlbauer not only for the IDs, but also the bio-metric voter registration system, which was not delivered.

A third concern raised was about the type of IDs, which uses barcode technology.

The East African Community secretariat in 2008 advised Uganda to abandon that type of technology because it was not compatible with other countries in the region.

The smartcard technology uses a chip instead of a barcode. A chip can accommodate a lot more information, such as medical records, criminal records, educational data and driving permits.
-Tribunewp_posts