Last year's scrapping of the smart ID card tender has yielded an unexpected benefit by giving the Department of Home Affairs time to develop the infrastructure needed to deploy the project, said home affairs minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Speaking during a Parliamentary press conference yesterday, Dlamini-Zuma said: “Even if the tender had been awarded and we had gone ahead to develop the smart ID card, we would have run into problems with it as the infrastructure still has to be developed.”
The smart ID card is envisaged to replace the current green ID book. The latter document has been in use for more than 30 years and is susceptible to being forged or obtained fraudulently. These ID books, however, remain important as proof of identification in South Africans' daily lives.
The new system is supposed to introduce a card format ID, with a microchip embedded, which can be used to secure state pension payouts, with additional uses being considered.
The Department of Home Affairs cancelled the tender late last year, citing irregularities in the awarding of the deal to the State IT Agency. One hundred and fourteen million rand was originally budgeted for the smart card system.
“Now that the tender has been cancelled, we have to reapply to the National Treasury for the money to be allocated again. Because how the system works is that if we have not used that money for its intended purpose, we have to return it to the National Treasury,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
“We have to consider how and when these photographs are taken. We can't have false photographs being presented and then used,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
She said her department was in consultation with the Government Printing Works to see how much of the smart ID cards it could manufacture with only a limited amount of outsourcing to private companies.
“We want a similar system that we use with our passports in that they are printed in a secure environment,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
No indication was given as to when the smart ID card could make its debut.
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Smart ID cards cancelled - for now
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