Johannesburg | Tuesday
GOVERNMENT hopes to make multi-purpose smart cards available during the next financial year, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Monday.
Briefing journalists in Cape Town, he said the issuing of the electronic cards would be accompanied by an extensive education campaign.
”We intend to make the smart card available for the financial year 2002/03.”
Buthelezi said the contractor was to hand over the Home Affairs National Identification System (Hanis) to the department this month.
”Hanis, a national undertaking, has become a reality and we aspire to expose it now to the necessary applause.
”… in February 2002, the Hanis contractor, the Marpless Consortium, is scheduled to make a formal and official handover of the system to the department in what is called… the basic system commissioning,” he said.
The new system is designed to replace the current identification books with cards containing personal data linked to a national database storing the fingerprints of all South Africans.
It may be linked to all government structures, making tasks such as the issuing of driving licences and welfare payments much simpler.
Buthelezi said Hanis was destined to change the face of governance as well as of public service delivery.
”The envisaged uses of the smart ID card will offer state of the art technology and utility to the citizenry and also enable South Africa to leapfrog most of the world’s technology competitors.”
It was envisaged that the card would eventually be used by a number of private organisations such as banks, insurance companies and medical aids to help combat fraud.
The reduced fraud should help to substantially increase profits and therefore result in increased tax revenue to the state, he said. – Sapa
SA Department of Home Affairs website