Experts in the fields of IT, mining and other arenas are to meet the Ministry for Intelligence later this month for a three-day conference on the development of a national security strategy.
Safety and security minister Charles Nqakula told a parliamentary briefing this week that the Ministry for Intelligence will hold a broad consultative conference involving business and civil society from 18 to 20 May.
The outcomes will be integrated into a national security framework to be presented to Cabinet at the July Lekgotla.
Nqakula also noted that a process had been set in place to develop a blueprint for the transformation of the justice system. The blueprint will be submitted to Cabinet, together with key legislative proposals to fast-track the transformation process before the end of August.
Nqakula says progress is being made in the implementation of the Home Affairs National Identity System (HANIS), with the Home Affairs Department having started implementing the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. He said that so far, 2.85 million of an estimated 30 million paper-based fingerprint records had been converted to the HANIS system.
Cabinet will soon be approached to endorse further plans with respect to the roll-out of the smart identification card agreed to in 2001.The card will replace the green bar-coded ID. It is envisaged that the first smart ID cards will be issued by the end of 2006.
In addition, a refugee smart ID card is to be issued to all recognised refugees in SA to replace the existing refugee ID book. There are an estimated 40 000 refugees in SA.
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