MEMBERS of Parliament have expressed their satisfaction by the capacity of the Malaysian company picked earlier this year to produce National Identity Cards and want immediate execution of the 200bn/- project.
The MPs said they want to get more information on the company and the government should release the required funds to enable printing and subsequent release of the IDs.
The national identification project is to be executed by Iris Corp Bhd of Malaysia.
Legislator Anna Abdallah, who headed the team, said on arrival in Dar es Salaam on Sunday that they visited the country to find out how the Malaysia Home Affairs Ministry handles the Identification process and also confirm the capacity of the company which won the tender to execute the project.
"We went through something like "due diligence" and found out that the company has competence to execute the project," she said.
She said they noted more diverse advantages of having national Identity Cards and that they would inform the Parliament of their findings.
Hardly two months ago, the government picked the firm, Iris Corp Bhd of Malaysia, to take charge over the project.
It won the internationally floated tender and is expected to commence production later this year.
The five-year contract to issue 25 million National Identification cards (IDs) to qualifying Tanzanian citizens, is worth $149 million (about 200.2bn/-) and would involve procurement, supply, design, implementation, test, maintenance, support and commissioning of the national ID system based on modern Smartcard Technology.
It is understood that 36 months of the contract period would be for implementation while the other 24 months would involve maintenance and support services.
The Maswa MP, Mr John Shibuda who is part of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Defence, Security and Foreign Affairs, said they had confirmed that it's a company with potential. He said: "Let's leave out bureaucracy because it can hamper our growth. The importances of IDs are diverse."
He said that statistics show that two million people are taxed, yet there was capacity to stretch this to 15 million people if identification documents for every Tanzanian were in place.
"This will contribute to growth, possibly increase tax base to at least 10 million people.This can guarantee us tax from people up to 2trillion shillings," he said.
Speaking after MP Abdallah, he said this will significantly reduce dependency and help the country to grow faster.
He urged that the Prime Minister should oversee this process so that the responsibility is executed faster.
"Let's not just assume corruption where it is not. Let us change attitude.The project should start immediately and possibly be given priority," he said.
Some other Mps also came from the Parliamentary Committee for Social Welfare and Community Development.
According to the company, the funds for the project would come from the Tanzanian government revenues and bank loans.
Iris Corp Bhd also informed that it would set up a data centre and disaster recovery site, along with the required hardware, software including Automated Fingerprint Identification System and Services.
There would also be a National ID registry system and database including associated hardware, software and services for the roll out of the enrollment system to 142 sites across the country and a personalisation system at a centralised site.
According to the information, the company would also undertake the necessary post-implementation maintenance and support services including supply of spare parts.
The MPs' approval clears doubts that some sections of the public may have had as it the usual case, with international contracts.
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