Drafting of legislation for NIDS progressing well, says minister

   

Minister with Oversight for Skills & Digital Transformation, Senator Dr. Dana Morris Dixon, says the drafting of regulations governing the National Identification System (NIDS) is progressing well.

 

However, she stressed that the regulations must be brought to Parliament before the end of the year.

 

It was expected that the NIDS regulations would have been in place by April, but the deadline was moved to September.

 

Senator Morris Dixon, who addressed the matter at Wednesday's post Cabinet media briefing, did not give a reason for the delay in tabling the final draft, but said members of the public and other stakeholders have contributed to the documents. 

 

"These regulations, we put them online so that any member of the public could comment on them, and we got comments from regular Jamaicans who read the regulations.... And it was nice was to see some changes made to the regulations because of ordinary Jamaicans saying we think you should change this." 

 

She said the regulations were also sent to members of the private sector as well as the parliamentary opposition. 

 

Draft regulations for NIDS were laid in the House of Representatives on January 10.

 

Dr. Warren Vernon, Programme Director for the National Identification System project, said his unit has transitioned to a supporting role to get the National Identification and Registration Authority established.

 

The Authority will be responsible for the implementation and management of NIDS.

 

Dr. Vernon added that more enrolment centres have been identified to facilitate the issuing of identification cards. 

 

"For this year, we're already out for tender for 20 Jamaican Post offices that we're modifying to facilitate enrolment. We're also placing a lot of emphasis on adjusting the application. You would be aware that we had a pilot of the system earlier this year and we got a lot of feedback from the public and we are currently updating the system. So our target is by the end of this year, it is our intention to get the system ready so that the authority will be able to take it to the next level," he advised. 

 

The pilot project was launched at the first enrolment centre, the Central Sorting Office in Kingston, in December last year.