The Minister of Interior of The Gambia, Abdoulie Sanyang, says a plan is afoot for a new national ID card production contract.
The minster gave the information recently during an exchange with legislators in the National Assembly. He was quizzed by parliamentarians on various issues including the ID card problem and concerns regarding an airport tax which travelers entering the country are subjected to.
National ID cards have not been issued in The Gambia for many months now following the end of a government contract with Semlex.
Sanyang told lawmakers that contrary to claims that the contract with the Belgian company was terminated, the deal only came to its specified end.
He explained that the company had requested an extension of the contract but the request was turned down by the government over unfavourable conditions.
In order to provide a solution to the problem and ease the suffering of the people for lack of proof of ID documents, the minister said “we are working on other contracts to embed the local content on the issuance of ID cards.” He said the idea is to allow the government greater possibility of getting a new contract that would spare them the issues that came up between them and Semlex.
The Gambia began issuing ID cards following biometric deduplication by Innovatrics through a 2009 partnership with local firm Pristine Consulting. Semlex and the Gambia government then entered into a six-year contract in June 2016. The deal was terminated shortly after, before being eventually restored after fresh negotiations.
Per the contract, Semlex was to deploy the necessary software and hardware sources to ensure the putting in place of a biometric identification and authentication system which entailed the production of identity documents such as biometric national ID cards, driver’s licenses, visa stickers and residence permits.
The deal was concluded on a Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis which required the company to invest in the infrastructure, produce the documents for the duration of the contract and then hand over the system and operational skills through training.
Sanyang had told Gambians in July that the production of ID cards was going to resume in August as reported by The Standard, but the plan did not materialise. There have been complaints from Gambian citizens about the intermittent nature of issuing identity documents in the country in the past months, according to The Voice Newspaper.
The UN Economic Commission for Africa is helping the Gambian government to implement a National Digital ID System (DIDS), the strategy of which was detailed in a report last year. The government this year entered into an agreement with big data analytics company Presight to support its digital transformation efforts through the issuance of digital ID.
