SA to get smart IDs

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Johannesburg, 14 Feb 2008

South Africans should start seeing the new smart ID card by the end of 2009, as the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) reviews all its IT projects, director-general Mavuso Msimang says.

Speaking at a parliamentary media briefing yesterday, Msimang said the smart ID card system was being developed because the current green ID document had proven to be susceptible to being forged and tampered with.

"Last year, we issued a request for information from a number of potential suppliers so we could get an idea of the costs we were getting ourselves into. These RFIs have been evaluated and we should be issuing a request for proposals soon," he said.

Msimang said the question of how much a citizen would pay for their cards was also being examined.

"Everybody has the right to an ID card, so the cost must be affordable. Currently, a person pays about R30 for an ID book, which doesn't even come close to the actual cost of producing it," he said.

How long a smart ID card will be used for was another factor that had to be determined, according to Msimang.

"The card will have a chip with information stored on it, so it will be swiped for this information to be accessed. This means the cards will eventually wear out and will have to be replaced. It seems that the average life span of these cards will be about eight years."

Smart testing

Msimang says a pilot project will first be conducted with some key government departments before being fully implemented.

A replacement for the green ID book was first mooted in the early 1990s and Msimang said there seemed to be some resistance to the implementation of a smart card system when that was first considered eight years ago.

"However, it is now really needed to counter corruption."

The DHA has been described by many as one of the most dysfunctional of all the government departments, plagued with instances of corruption and inefficiencies. Msimang, who was formerly head of the State IT Agency, was appointed to his current position last year to head a turnaround of the department.

Part of this strategy centres on a review of all IT projects and a consideration of alternatives.

Msimang says the DHA wants to get all its software, including applications, onto a common architecture as this should improve cost effectiveness and efficiencies.

"We have reviewed projects such as the fancifully named 'Who am I?' system, which is the online verification system. We are also reviewing the refugee movement system and the porting of our hard copy files to an electronic management system."