As the National Identification Authority (NIDA) prepares to register Dar es Salaam residents for national identification cards at the end of this month, the authority has called on the public to expose people they suspect to be foreigners in the respective areas.

The exercise will be preceded by preliminary education of people, civil society groups and human rights activists on the importance of the exercise, NIDA Head of Information, Thomas William told journalists in the city yesterday.

He said during the five-hour seminar, organised by the authority, that the aim is to get genuine Tanzania citizens who are directly concerned with the national IDs and nobody else during an exercise to be carried out from house to house. He appealed to the people to show cooperation to ensure success.

“The work will be done in collaboration with ward secretaries in the city… they will take records and relevant details of prospective applicants in the permanent registration book to be issued by NIDA.

He said after important details are taken, applicants will be issued with application forms to fill in information.

National IDs were to be issued on April 26 this year in a pilot project starting with security forces and civil servants living in Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and residents of Kilombero, Morogoro Region. But challenges related to forged school certificates and other shortcomings forced the authority to postpone the exercise.

Forgery of school certificates and other documentations are among factors that have made the exercise difficult; he said adding that the authority has not reached its target because of the shortfalls.

Verification of documentations detailing the records of applicants would be checked and approved by the Immigration Department while RITA would deal someone’s age, to be followed by the issuance of ID cards.

The ID provides information nationality and the physical location including places of domicile to be preserved in a special database for reference. Tanzania government established the National Identification Authority (NIDA) on July1, 2008..

NIDA Executive Director Dickson Maimu was quoted in Dar es Salaam recently as saying, the process of engaging the company that would produce the IDs was in the final stages. The project will coat $176 million (about Sh200 billion.