Budget crisis puts national ID project in limbo danger
By: Louis Kolumbia-The Citizen Correspondent
Dar es Salaam.
A looming budget crisis threatens to derail the national identification project that is vital for the socio-economic growth of the country.
Identity cards would enable banks to trace loan defaulters and will also help the Police fight crime more easily as well as boost national security.
Reports say because of inadequate resources, the National Identification Authority (NIDA) would not be able to meet some or all of its deadlines because of lack of working tools and a shortage of staff.
The issuing of IDs started early this year with civil servants and members of security forces.
The current inadequacy is due to insufficient budgetary allocations as well as the decision by the government to reduce the time it would take to complete the exercise countrywide from three years to one and a half years.
NIDA principal information officer Rose Mdami, said the Authority’s officials have initiated negotiations with the government and other stakeholders on how the looming crisis would be avoided.
She could not say how much more NIDA wanted from the government to be able to complete the exercise only noting that the Authority would issue a statement to the media when the negotiations were concluded.
According to Ms Mdami, NIDA has experienced new demands that require more investment in the areas of technology, human resource development and smooth running of administrative matters after the project duration was compressed to meet other stakeholders’ demand.
Earlier, the project was planned to be implemented in a period of three years, but demands from project stakeholders required it be completed within a year and half.
Stakeholders working in collaboration with NIDA, whose responsibilities solely depended on the completion of the project, included the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) that was charged with implementing the post code project and the National Electoral Commission (NEC) that undertook development of the voter’s registration book.
Soma zaidi...www.kwanzajamii.com/?p=4342
0 comments:
Post a Comment