The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) does not yet have a rollout plan for the smart ID card project and has not determined its costs either.
However, in response to a parliamentary question, minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the pilot is expected to be carried out over the 2012/13 financial year.
This is after the minister said in her budget speech in April that the project would be piloted during this financial year and then rolled out in the 2012/13 financial year.
“Planning is in progress to ensure that infrastructure in front offices, such as Live Capture, is completed prior to smart card implementation. The system is envisaged to be piloted during the 2012/13 financial year.”
“The department fully anticipates that a pilot will be run this year. It has been done on a much smaller scale with the crew member certificates for SAA and is working very well,” said DHA spokesperson Manusha Pillai in July.
She added that the intention was to run a broader pilot project in this financial year.
Unknown costs
Dlamini-Zuma added that due to its sophistication and complexity, the smart card cost will be determined once the business requirements have been crafted.
Citizens will not be charged for their first smart ID cards when the project is finally rolled out. Pillai says the first smart card given to every citizen will be free. However, replacement cards, in the case of loss of the first one, will be “quite” expensive.
The department does not have exact figures yet, but confirms that the prices will be significantly high.
In terms of when the phasing out of the current green ID books will begin, the minister said the department still has to determine the rollout plan of the smart ID cards.
Old delays
Dlamini-Zuma cancelled the project in March last year, saying her department ran out of money after it used the R114 million allocated for the project “for other things”.
The project was originally supposed to be piloted at the end of 2008, using pensioners as the sample group, but this did not happen.
The contract was sent out for tender, but was not awarded as the entire project was put on hold in 2009. The DHA says this is because of the Who Am I Online (WAIO) delay, since the smart card project needed all the new systems to be in place first before it could be worked on.
WAIO will see the overhaul of the department's systems. The project aims to replace outdated and obsolete legacy systems.
The smart ID card project will replace the traditional green ID books for South African citizens. The smart cards will have embedded microchips, which can be used to secure state pension payouts. Additional uses are being considered.
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