New-look national IDs launched

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Minister of Home Affairs Immigration, Safety and Security Albert Kawana on Thursday said the new-look national identification documents (IDs) will have multiple advantages for various industries, especially in fighting and reducing criminal activities.

Kawana during the launch of the new look IDs said the benefits will be a ripple effect as financial crimes will be reduced and social grants will be issued only to those who are verified to be alive.

He said ghost employees will also be a thing of the past, banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions will operate with ease because financial fraud will be minimised.

“The new-look IDs will be more secure by having a quick response code and machine-readable zone containing elements that will be read by a machine and are not easy to forge. Likewise, with these new features, we can engage neighbouring countries to consider using these ID cards as travel documents,” said Kawana.

He added that another advantage of the new IDs is that they can be linked to e-governance, a policy for the public sector that was adopted in 2018, to support and simplify the administration, service delivery and government interaction with individuals and businesses, as well as within government itself through the use of information and communication technology.

“It is against this background that the ministry can serve as a hub for e-governance. There is, therefore, a need to strengthen Home Affairs systems, especially the population register in order to enable both public and private sectors to verify IDs on the population register,” said Kawana.

The current IDs, he added, will continue to be in use because the migration to the new IDs will be done in a gradual progression, while those applying for new IDs will be issued with the new-look IDs for free. However, duplicates will be charged in order to encourage the citizens to take care of their ID cards.

The new-look IDs were launched by President Hage Geingob, who said most neighbouring countries have already agreed to allow citizens to cross borders with the new IDs as passports and make the movement of people and goods smooth.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency