Over a million smart-ID cards have been issued in less than a year, home affairs director general Mkuseli Apleni said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“We are confident of reaching the target of 1.6 million [smart-ID] cards by the end of 2014\/15 financial year,” he said in a speech prepared for delivery in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
“We are really moving, considering this process only started in 2013.”<\/p>\n
The department was implementing a programme to make its systems faster and more secure.<\/p>\n
“It used to take 54 days for you to get an ID book. Now with the new smart-ID card it takes less than 10 days,” Apleni said.<\/p>\n
Of the 403 home affairs offices, 110 were equipped with a “live capture” system for processing smart-ID cards and new passports. By March it was expected that 140 offices would have the new technology.<\/p>\n
The smart-ID cards could only be issued at the offices where the new live capture system was in place. This had resulted in long queues at some of these stations.<\/p>\n
Apleni said the old green ID books remained valid. These could be applied for at offices that had not yet migrated to the new system.<\/p>\n
The bandwidth required for optimum functioning of the live capture system remained a problem.<\/p>\n
It was in talks with the State Information Technology Agency and Telkom to find ways to provide greater bandwidth, optic fibre cables, and prevent cable theft in metropolitan areas.<\/p>\n
The department was also making provision to deal with power cuts.<\/p>\n
“We conduct scheduled systems upgrades and make provision for sufficient capacity generators to ensure systems are able to function even when there are power outages around the country,” he said.<\/p>\n
R140 smart ID fee will hurt the poor: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n