Registry to buy printing machine

By ERIC PIET
A NEW national identification card printing machine will be bought to replace the two faulty ones, according to the PNG Civil and Identity Registry.
Registrar-General Noel Mobiha told The National on Friday that talks were underway with Singaporean company Watch Data Technologies, a subcontractor of Huawei Technologies, to supply and install the machine which can print 2000 cards a day.
Mobiha said the Government had allocated K6 million to purchase the printing machine plus 60 mobile kits to ensure that people get registered and have their cards printed this year.
He said the registration process and data entry were progressing well. Card printing would start as soon as the machine was available.
“The issue is not the cards but the registrations. Registrations must continue and we are doing that very well. Once the card printer is here we will start printing,” Mobiha said.
He is confident the plan to register and print the two million cards for people will be achieved since the new machine can print 2000 cards a day. The old ones can only print 400 a day.
Meanwhile, Mobiha said work on fixing the two old machines was being held up because they did not have any maintenance deal with the designer of the system.