The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has shortlisted six firms for possible selection as local manufacturers of the National electronic identity card (National eID Card).

The six firms, including Electronic Pay Plus Ltd, the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc and Secure ID Ltd, that emerged after the financial bid opening at the weekend in Abuja, have now qualified for the final stage of the selection process.

The financial bid opening for the local production of the National eID Card is the penultimate step in the selection of local manufacturers for the eID Card launched by the President in August 2014.

THISDAY learnt that to ensure sufficient local capacity, NIMC plans to appoint a few of the firms and guide them in the process of attaining the appropriate technical specifications and global standards which it has set.

Currently there is no local manufacturing firm that has been certified and or accredited or with sufficient experience to produce the eID Card. However sources close to the Card Managemnt Services department confirmed that as part of the commission’s local content policy, a strategic plan has been put in place to ensure that local manufacturers with various related levels of comepetencies are enabled to acquire the required technical expertise. This, the source pointed out, would be guided to achieve the set standards and certification to ensure that in the near future the Commission will no longer have to import the eID Cards the way it currently does.

This will help build local content level, indigenious expertise and technology transfer as well as create employment opportunities in line with the Transformation Agend of the Presdient.

NIMC’s General Manager, Finance and Investment, Mr. Ibrahim Abdullahi, who chaired the bid opening explained that the process which had been ongoing for sometime now included a study of the existing cards Industry – both card manufacture and card personalisation.

This, according to him, was done to enable the commission ascertain the best strategy to adopt to support possible local manufacturers to achieve the required capacities and competencies within a short time, in line with the commission’s objectives under the card scheme of the National Identity Management System (NIMS) and more importantly in line with the Mr. President’s Transformation Agenda.

Abdullahi noted that the commission was also mindful of the fact that the NIMS Card scheme, when fully issued will have in excess of 150million in circulation and with an estimated annual replacement rate of about 15 per cent.

He added that the commission worked on the design of the card for over one year. This partly accounts for the long time it took to start issuing the Cards after Government gave its approval in November 2012, noting that NIMC could confidently say its card is unique and very difficult to counterfeit or forge.

Abdullahi pointed out that since the card was launched in August 2014, the commission had taken delivery of about 6.6million cards, part of the 13million cards under the pilot scheme approved in 2012. Already these cards are being issued to their owners from Abuja and Lagos and in another week or two, from all State Offices of the NIMC, nationwide.

He enjoined the companies, most of whom were not represented by their chief executives to please take the exercise and the impending assignment very serious, warning that the commission would not hesitate to wield the big stick to avoid ugly situations of the past where successful bidders had held the commission to ransom for non-performance and thereby slowed the pace of implementation of the NIMS project.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/nimc-shortlists-mint-secure-id-4-others-for-local-production-of-national-id-card/198851/