President Jacob Zuma is set to receive his smart ID card today, after the new ID format was officially launched two weeks ago, on Mandela day.
Zuma will visit the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) office, in Pretoria, where his card will officially be handed over by minister Naledi Pandor. Zuma's biometric details, photograph and electronic signature were captured by the department earlier this month.
After receiving his smart ID card, Zuma will preside over a ceremony at the Government Printing Works where four smart ID card printing machines will be named after women leaders Sophie De Bruyn, Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa.
The DHA says in a statement, the naming ceremony will be in honour of the women's march to Union Buildings in 1956, led by the four women leaders, to demand an end to the pass laws and all restrictions that had been placed by successive racist regimes against the majority of the people.
Pandor has previously said the smart ID card will not only go a long way in curbing identity fraud in the country, but also puts the "indignity, humiliation and marginalisation of the Apartheid pass laws behind citizens, utilising technology to restore dignity to South Africans".
Former president Nelson Mandela was the first to receive his smart ID card, while former president FW de Klerk and archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu have also become new ID card-holders.
Roll-out to the general public will continue with first-time identity document applicants and senior citizens. Thereafter, South Africans will be invited to DHA offices in stages, according to dates of birth.
Smart ID cards will be issued free to 16-year-olds who are first-time applicants, while all other applicants will be expected to pay R140.
Pandor has said it will take six to eight years to complete the roll-out of the cards and appealed to the public to exercise patience during the process.
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