Sudan national security ID system to utilise satellite technology
By Toby Collins
February 13, 2012 (LONDON) – Sudan’s minister for interior Ibrahim Mahmoud on Sunday discussed the progress of implementing the national security ID system with the director general of the police Hashim Osman Al-Hussein, state media reported.
The interior minister at the meeting announced the issuance of the first ID card through MENOS.
MENOS is the system used by the news network, Aljazeera’s sport department to receive digital content.
Khartoum first expressed its interest in MENOS in January 2010 as a system to aid the Sudan News Agency (SUNA); state media established by the former president of Sudan, Jafaar Nemeiri in 1970.
SUNA reports that Mahmoud discussed the “high rate of registration of citizens at the centers of civil registry” with Al-Hussein.
Mahmoud announced that the civil registration programme would begin in May 2011, aiming to register 8 million of Sudan’s 16 million citizens by the end of the year. Figures on the levels of registration have not been released.
The registration programme was announced two months before the secession of South Sudan and after the plebiscite was held in January 2011. Mohamed Ahmad Al-Sayyed, the director-general of the civil registry department at the ministry of interior, stated that issuing of identity cards to people from South Sudan would be subject to “political considerations”.
Al-Sayyed explained that the ID cards would be required for access to many civil amenities such as school registration, banking transactions, driving licenses and passports.
(ST)