By The Government of Liberia through the Civil Service Agency has revealed that it will shortly lunch a Biometric ID Card system as part of its reform strategy. Disclosing this to our reporter, the Director of the Biometric Center, Mr. Afraid Drosaye said the ID card will help government in its fight against corruption and clean its payroll of ghost names.
He said the new system is also intended to help government in its time management system; meaning it will identify the entry and exist time of all government employees and protect the system against “flaw”. He said the new system, “first of it kind in west Africa” will also enable the government to increase salaries of its employees in order to reduce poverty in line with its Poverty Reduction strategy (PRS).
‘Under Pillar-ll of the PRS: Revitalizing the Economy, an important goal is the rapid creation of productive employment that will reduce poverty, ensure peace and stability, and enhance the overall well-being of the Liberian population’.
According to Mr. Drosaye, during the process finger prints as well as face recognition of all employees of various government ministries and agencies will be captured in order to prevent employees from multiple salaries. According to section 66.3b and 66.11 of the Act creating the Civil Service Agency mandates it to keep an accurate and up-to-date record of every individual employed in the civil service system.
He said based upon this law the Government of Liberia has provided a US$500,000 to secure a hardware and software from a Sierra Leonean company Digital-U, for the smooth operation of its Biometric Center which according to him is located on Carey Street, next to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication.
Mr. Dorsaye further said that the project is being done in collaboration with the Ministries of Education, Finance, and Health and Social Welfare. The project is expected to cover all government ministries and agencies; starting with the Ministry of State, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Gender and Development and the Planning Ministry. Others are the General Services Agency (GSA), Liberia Institute of Public Administration (LIPA) Liberia Institution of Statistics and Geo-Information Services, (LISGIS) CNDRA, and ANTB.
email: [email protected]
