Saturday June 27, 2015
Kabul (BNA) President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani discussed the other day distribution of electronic ID cards with the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Minister of Interior Affairs as well as representatives of European Union, Independent Election Commission, USAID, GIZ and a number of advisers from international organizations, the President Press Office said in a statement. The President’s Special Representative for Reforms and Good Governance, Mr. Ahmad Zia Massoud, was also present in the meeting that took place in Arg. In the beginning, the President’s adviser, Dr. Qader Wedan, presented his working reports on the distribution process of electronic ID cards to the President. Other participants and technical expatriate advisers also presented their views and recommendations on the distribution of electronic ID cards. One of the views was distribution of 20 million ID cards in three to nine months. Most of the participants considered it infeasible to distribute ID cards to all citizens across the country within that time frame. The participants reiterated implementation of a pilot phase where the main problems are identified and solutions are south prior to the distribution of the ID cards across the country. The expatriate experts and technical advisers recommended that the equipment and systems are tested in the pilot phase in order to ensure that data is not lost due to system break-down or equipment malfunctions during the distribution process. Thanking the participants and technical expatriate advisers for their ideas and recommendations, President Ghani said that electronic ID cards are necessary for transparency of elections. He added that our citizens demand electronic ID cards but not practical plan has been presented to him in this regard so far. President Ghani asked that a working plan be prepared and shared with him within one week for the pilot phase of the projects. He said that the plan for the pilot phase will first be implemented in Kabul. The President reiterated serious monitoring of the distribution process of the electronic ID cards. President Ghani asked the Afghan and expatriate technical advisers to present to him in the next meeting a number of options on the process of distribution so that the meeting chooses the most feasible one. The President urged that potential risks concerning implementation of the distribution of electronic ID cards be identified and a comprehensive plan be prepared to eliminate them. In the meeting the technical expatriate advisors were also asked to raise the matter again with the President after completion of their assessment on the distribution of electronic ID cards.
