Dar es Salaam. The National Identification Authority (Nida) says it is working on a national identity smartcard that would do away with the need to have multiple IDs.
Currently, Tanzanians have several identification documents, including the national ID, driving licence, health insurance ID, social security fund membership card, employment ID, transport fare cards, and bank cards, among others.
Access multiple services
But Nida director general Edson Guyai said the weekend that the proposed smartcard would allow holders to access multiple services, including finance, transport and insurance.
Mr Guyai made the revelation when speaking on the television station UTV during a programme marking President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s one year in office.
“We plan to reduce the number of IDs through issuance of a smartcard ID, which will add value to the existing one,” he said.
“We want it to be recognised as an ATM card, and insurance and licence document that will enable citizens to conveniently access services,” Mr Guyai added.
He said as part of efforts to implement the plan, Nida had started to integrate various identification systems in both public and private sectors.
“So far we have succeeded in integrating at least 52 identification systems from various sectors that will help to eradicate the challenges encountered in accessing essential services.”
On Nida’s achievements since President Hassan came into office on March 19, 2021, Mr Guyai said: “We are proud to have registered one million people, provided identification numbers to 1.3 million people, and issued three million IDs”.
For his part, Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (Heslb) executive director Abdul-Razaq Badru said smartcard IDs would help the agency to establish the location and activities of loan beneficiaries.
“This will enable us to have a more accurate database. We will be able to know exactly where loan beneficiaries are, and what they are doing for a living, including their employment centres,” he said
Transport Regulatory Authority (Latra) director general Gilliard Ngewe said the system would tackle long-standing challenges associated with consumer identification.
He added that the smartcard IDs would facilitate issuance of electronic tickets.
“This will help in the implementation of electronic tickets plan, which will require citizenship ID numbers of recipients, and make it possible, for example, to know exactly how many passengers were in a vehicle in case of an accident,” he said.
Customers’ particulars
The commissioner of insurance, Dr Baghayo Saqware, said the use of tghe proposed smartcards would make it easier to get customers’ particulars.
“The challenge we now face in positively identifying insurance clients is that a lot of IDs from the customer are required, but this will be history once the smartcards come into operation in addition to cutting operating costs and bureaucracy,” he said.
Mr Guyai noted that provision of national IDs had vastly improved over the past year during which Nida produced 3 million IDs, which is more than a quarter of the total number of documents issued by the agency since its establishment.
Source: The Citizen