Abel adamant NID project’s expenditure was transparent

By MALUM NALU
DEPUTY Prime Minister Charles Abel says he has nothing to hide regarding the use of the K250 million allocated to the National Identification (NID) project over the past five years.
He told The National this last night in response to queries raised on the NID project.
It included a statement from his successor as National Planning and Monitoring Minister, Richard Maru, who queried how the money had been spent, given that only 300,000 ID cards were issued before the start of the general election.
Abel said everything had been done correctly.
“People say audit NID and all that. Go ahead. Do 25 audits and everything you want,” he said.
“There’s nothing to hide. Everything has been done correctly.
“The only issue with NID is the difficulty of the registration exercise. That’s all. There’s nothing else wrong about NID. The basis of the system is all there.
“Go into the NID office and see the big card-print network, computer system, the database backup server at Telikom Rumana.
“Go around the country and see all the offices that we built. Look at the legislation we brought to Parliament.
“Look at the nice birth certificates people are picking up now.
“There are four million blank cards being purchased. They are at NID Haus waiting for the registration to come through.
“These are cards that can hold various data — driving license, banking, passport, etc.
“That’s where the money is being spent. There’s actually nothing to hide. It’s a matter of picking up and rolling the programme, improving it.”