Among the many plans that are going to be implemented in Ethiopia by the government is the issuance of National Identity Card. However, due to various reasons it was delayed for more than a decade.
It was ten years ago that the government planned to provide National Identity Card to citizens but it was in vein. However, many raised questions why the issuance is delayed.
Yodahe Zemichael is the Director of the National Identity Card Project organized under the auspicious of the Prime Minister Office. As to him, it was long ago that the issuance of the National Identification Card planned.
It was believed that due to various reasons the issuance is delayed which is critically essential to all service provision institutions to serve citizens.
Many agreed that, the absence of National Identity Card was a loose as a nation. Not offering of National Identity Card is also denial of citizen’s rights to be defined by the national identity.
The delay of the issuance also hampers the provision of accelerated service to citizen. In addition, it opened the door for criminal gangs to use forged identity card by different names to commit crimes and fraud money.
The underdevelopment of the financial sector also attributes to the absence of the National Identification Card said Tesehay Shiferaw the Awash bank General Manager.
He further said that, it was more than a decade since the issuance of national identity was a matter of discussion in the banking industry but due to various undisclosed reasons it was delayed. Therefore, implementing the issuance must be underlined because it has high value to the financial sector.
“It also helps for the creation of inclusive financial sector and critical to benefit ordinary citizens by providing access to obtain loan from banks,” he said. In other countries, national identification and social security is a basic issue.
The newly introduced national identification card which has 12 digits number helps banks to identify their customers and provide proper service. However, the absence of data which provides information regarding citizens’ identity affects service provision in various institutions.
The absence of national identification card in Ethiopia defined the nation as a hidden country. Some argue that the delay of the issuance of Identification Card for more than a decade only served the interest of corrupted established political system which was removed four years ago.
The reason behind was the provision of the National Identity Card exposes criminals which fraud money and have affinity with political officials.
According to the National Identity Card issuance project office, the establishment of modern identification card system enriched by the digital technology enables to plan the economy, social and political programs. In addition, it helps to create trust between customers and service providing public and private institutions. It also serves to develop the system of transparency and accountability.
As to Yodahe, the provision of the Identity card began based on the pilot program. Even though it was delayed for long, currently it got green light and it targets to reach all citizens. Nevertheless, the claim by the national identification card project that the issuance may take 4 years did not convince some segments of the society.
As to the project manager, the implementation of the project began one year ago and the issuance may take some time because the implementation is carried out with the collaboration of other stakeholders. Among the mechanisms to accelerate the activities is reaching agreement and doing the job with other organs.
The stakeholders working in collaboration with the project are financial institutions and up to now it signed a memorandum of understanding with four banks.
Last week, it reached on an agreement with Awash bank and based on the agreement, the project digital system will be connected with the Awash bank system so that, the issuance will be smoothly proceed .
The system enables the bank to obtain the information with regard to the customer identity and in such manner the service provision could be conducted in simplest and speedy way.
According to Tsehay, the issuance of National Identity Card enhances the banks competency capacity at global level. In this regard, Kenya went far ahead of Ethiopia. Customers without going physically to banks can access loan in on line system.
The identification card enables small scale enterprises, civil servants and private employee to get loan from banks in accordance with their capital and salary amount with no collateral requirements.
Opportunities also created to banks to provide various services to customers and as to Tsehay, a customer right after he obtained the national identification card can get loan from Awash bank through online system.
In the past, the absence of the National Identity Card forced banks to provide loan to customers with excess collateral requirement.
Due to the unavailability of National Identity Card, banks were forced to provide 85 percent of their loan money to urban centers.
In other countries customers are not required to provide collateral to get loan because the identification card enables them to do so.
Therefore, the new system will change the loan provision criterion from collateral to the National Identity Card. In addition, it increases the numbers of borrowers meaningfully.
The system also enables to trace and contain fraud in the banking business. As to Yodahe, it can significantly reduce fraud particularly in transferring money through check system. It also saves time and energy during financial transaction and to provide the money to the correct person.
According to Yodahe, 99 percent of customers are innocent and only very few are engage in fraud and because of these, the innocents suffer a great deal from fraudulent practices and the new system expected to mitigate such problems.
As to Tsehay, Awash bank has more than seven million customers and talked with the national commission with regard to offering identification card to these customers. He hoped that the new system creates good opportunities to the bank industry.
It also helps customers to lead their life in program and they can obtain the service from any banks everywhere and every time. The service what they obtained also reveled in every banks.
The customer can also ignore other services from other banks. Therefore, he can minimize risks and obtain loan only based on his refunding capacity. It also enables to know only when he refunds the borrowed money he can obtain new loan. Therefore, they system enables to create responsible citizenship.
The number mentioned in the identification card enables the customer to get services from institutions such as bank, health and education.
As to Yodahe, the number can be connected with the Resident Identification Card, driving license, banks and insurance services and can serve to crosschecks his identity. In general, the system enables to build modern digital identification card administration system enriched by technology.
In addition, it helps to plan social, economic and political developments and to create smooth relation between the public and private sectors and build trust.
The main stay of the nation’s economy is agriculture which is the means of living of 85 percent of the population. As the sector is subsistence, the living standard of the farmers left to be hand to mouth.
As mentioned above the bank loan system in the last century was heavily depending on collateral system. as the result, only the haves get access to loan from bank and the majority poor was marginalized from getting loan from banks.
Therefore, the issuance of national identification card enables citizens to get access to loan from banks without the collateral requirements. Therefore, the rural poor farmers can get access to loan so that enhance their farming productivity, get sufficient medical and education services and ultimately realizing poverty reduction in the rural areas will be possible.
National ID Program – Ethiopia (@IDethiopia)/Twitter
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
The Ethiopian Herald 6 April 2022
