NIDA Director General, Dickson Maimu
The National Identification Authority (NIDA) has said the agency is setting up an integrated system that will enable various national institutions to easily retrieve an individual’s information, before it issues the IDs.
According to the authority issuance of the IDs will be the last stage of the whole process.
NIDA Director General (DG), Dickson Maimu, told The Guardian in a telephone interview on Monday that NIDA’s data system will be linked to systems of Tanzania Revenue Authority, the immigration department, financial institutions and others of national importance.
“I know many people want to have their national identity cards but the process itself is complicated. Currently, we are finalising linking our information system with other important institutions in the country. It does not help to issue one with an ID if the data is not linked with other institutions,” he said.
According to Maimu, around 80 percent of the country’s population does not have access to banks and loans, partly because there is no system of formally identifying such people.
He said it is through linking of the system that all the people in the formal and informal sectors will be easily identified and enabled to access some services that they could not get before.
Dar es Salaam residents were due to to get the national IDs during this month.
The DG did not say when the IDs shall be available, but stressed that once the integrated system is in place, issuance will not be much of a problem.
NIDA plans to issue national IDs to more than 2,000,000 Dar es Salaam residents anytime after installation of the integrated data system. It has so far issued IDs to 220,000 civil servants and a few selected citizens.
Janet Stratton a Kinondoni resident said the national ID is a very important document, calling on NIDA to speed up the exercise. “You know most people don’t want to hear about any challenge that the agency is facing. What we need are the IDs. Sometimes it is boring to wait for something for so long. It is almost six month since agency took our details,” she said.
Ubungo resident Hamis Kajuna called on the residents to be patient, pointing out that the exercise needs to be handled with a lot of care.
NIDA started collecting biometric information in Zanzibar in February this year after completing the exercise in Dar es Salaam.
President Jakaya Kikwete inaugurated the national identity cards project in February last year. At that time the first 46 IDs were issued to top government leaders and a few prominent persons.
This marked a milestone in the registration and identification of Tanzanians for the first time since its independence on December 9, 1961.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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