The protocol that will become a reality on July 1, presents one of the easy to solve logistical issues through a simple standard travel document compared to the several legal and political complexities of integration.
A common market will among others allow free movement of people and labour. Uganda does not have a standard national identification system, meaning this will present the first challenge to exploiting the common market.
Gideon Badagawa, the head of the Private Sector Foundation, explained that Uganda acquiring the identity card would be a big step in the integration process. “Yes, you can train but it may not be easy for you to work if you do not have a national identity card,” said Badagawa.
Only a national passport exists as an official international identification document for Ugandans. Yet information available indicates that a few Ugandans posses the national passport.
Lydia Wanyoto, a Ugandan representative on the East Africa Community Parliament disclosed that there is still debate on what should be regarded as acceptable.
“When people talk about an identity card, they narrow it, but the debate is how we can identify an East African,” said Wanyoto.
She argued that the principle of identifying an East African is the most important. Wanyoto noted that the region had partly decided on a go-slow but cautious process to minimise mistakes.
What is clear is that come July 1, the masses of the EAC shall suffer some checks and scrappy logistical issues like across board identification systems.
Why a national identity card
A full proof identification card that would feed into the grand national information system of the country is what Uganda needs.
Officials at the East African Community affairs ministry noted that the document was long overdue.
The new national identity cards being examined by the Government are designed with internationally accepted security features. They are polycarbonate; laser engraved, meaning they cannot be scratched.
Through their biometric details like the fingerprint and photo, the owner of the ID card can be verified fast and secure.
“So it is possible to check and compare the live fingerprint of the card owner with the fingerprint in the document,” said an IT expert.
It is expected that with the national security information system project, Uganda is able to provide tamper-proof national identification documents to its citizens.
Several institutions have biometric. The Credit Reference Bureau issues financial cards and customers who want to get loans have to process these cards first.
MapSwitch biometric identification handed out to civil servants in the Police and Army under the Wazalendo Cooperative Society are also using biometric cards.
E-government
The national identity card will according to experts be the basis of the first central biometrical national population databank under the e-government project.
All government institutions such as immigration, the Police criminal data system, the Uganda Registration Service Bureau, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, NSSF, education information system, health information system, financial institutions or Credit Reference Bureau can therefore cross-check their needs and are able to eliminate identity fraud in welfare, unemployment or retirement payment and finally improve the security of the Ugandan population. “If you retire you need to be identified before you get the benefits.
“Police can also verify your details in case of cross-checking for criminals.”
Expensive
Costing about euro50, the document is relatively expensive for the average Ugandan as compared to the passport that costs about euro 27.
This is maybe due to the fact that it is designed to last for about 10 years. But the Government can subsidise costs for the citizens in the short-term since it is a prerequisite for trade and harnessing the benefits of integration.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): David Mugabe
Quelle/Source: The New Vision, 30.05.2010
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