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Hanis 'is working`

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist
Johannesburg, 21 Sept 2005

The Home Affairs National Information System (Hanis) project is working, said Tintswallo Shilowa, a business development manager from the Department of Home Affairs, at the e-government conference in Johannesburg this week.

The R1.8 billion Hanis project, conceived in 1993 and approved by Cabinet in January 1996, got under way in earnest in May this year. Three million fingerprints have been digitised in that three-month period, Shilowa said. Up to 65 000 fingerprints are converted daily and there are over six million records in Hanis, she said. The deadline for the fingerprinting project is September 2006.

Hanis is intended to digitise all home affairs information.

Shilowa differentiated between the population register and the envisaged smart ID card, and said the population register is now working and information is being digitised. She also assured delegates that the Hanis project would not be considered complete until the smart ID card system is also operational.

Regarding the smart card, a home affairs representative said the department is still waiting for cabinet approval following recommendations from a feasibility study. A pre-qualification tender is expected to be issued before the end of 2005, with the tender to follow in 2006 and the first cards issued in 2007.

The Department of Home Affairs plans to re-design the national population register, as it is currently seen as a record system, said Shilowa. Other systems will be integrated so that government has a single view of the citizen, she concluded.

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