Bad printers stall NID project

By ERIC PIET
The PNG Civil and Identity Registry Office has advised the public to continue doing their national identification (NID) registration, as it negotiates with the contractor to restore the card printing service.
Registrar general Noel Mobiha told The National yesterday that they were discussing with Watch Data Technologies, a Singaporean company sub-contracted by Huawei Technologies, to buy a new card printing machine and repair dysfunctional ones so printing of cards could resume next month.
While printing of birth certificates was going well, NID card printing came to an halt in December when the two machines, each with a printing capacity of 400 cards a day, encountered technical problems due to overloading of the system.
They still cannot work.
Mobiha said they understand the importance of an NID card in accessing services, hence they want the printing service restored quickly.
He said they would buy a bigger printer with a 2000-card daily card printing capacity.
The contractor will be asked to fix the old printers.
Mobiha said the costs for buying a new printer and maintaining the two existing ones would be revealed after a resolution was reached with the contractor. He said they had
K6 million given by Government for this purpose and also the purchase of 60 mobile kits.
“When we see the needs that we are faced with, the cost for meeting all these at once is insufficient,” Mobiha said.
“We would make it our business to negotiate with the contractor so that the important service of card printing is restored.
“We will prioritise buying a new machine with higher printing capacity so that printing can re-start soon to clear the backlog of registrations.
“If we have some funds remaining, then that will be used to cover the other costs.”
Mobiha also said they would get the contractor to train nationals to do maintenance and repair work on the machines in future to save money and time.