NIDA endorses national IDs for voting exercise

CHANCES are high that Tanzanians will vote in the next General Elections using National Identity Cards issued by the National Identification Authority (NIDA) as opposed to voting cards provided by the National Electoral Commission (NEC), it was learned here yesterday.

“NIDA has acquired the database of voters used by NEC to harmonise information between the two government institutions,” the Acting Head of Communications at NIDA, Ms Rose Mdami, said when briefing National Assembly Speaker Job Ndugai.

This was during an occasion where the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Mwigulu Nchemba, presented the Speaker with the newly issued national ID cards.

According to Ms Mdami, the identification authority will process the database from NEC to make it possible for voters to use their national identity cards for Presidential, Parliamentary and Local elections.

Ms Mdami likewise informed the Speaker that the new IDs currently being issued by NIDA bear the signature of the bearer as well as the issuing authority unlike the old ones. They also feature a barcode to enable electronic view of data on the cards.

As for the old IDs, she said the authority had created a special website where interested stakeholders such as financial institutions can access information of the card holders, including the signature and other details.

For his part, Speaker Ndugai suggested that the government should require all people opening bank accounts to possess national ID cards. The Speaker was informed on the other hand the identification authority will issue IDs of three categories to citizens, foreigners and refugees living in Tanzania.

On the difference between the two cards, Ms Mdami said the NEC IDs has 34 features whereas the NIDA cards have 72 features making the latter hard to forge.

She noted as well that the authority was working with the President’s Office Regional (Administration and Local Governments) to identify bonafide citizens to be issued with the cards.

The cards will be issued for free but a penalty of 20,000/- will be charged when one loses his/her ID.