Anambra State Government, on Friday, launched its e-ID card for civil servants in the state, saying that it would enable it and the citizens to easily identify the workers and other government employees.
The state Head of Service, Mrs Theodora Igwegbe, made the public presentation at Jerome Udoji Secretariat in Awka, saying that the idea was to strengthen the workers’ identity management.
Igwegbe, a lawyer, disclosed that the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, had already approved the procurement and distribution of 200 laptops and desktops to the relevant government offices to aid the process.
“It will interest us to note that this is only the first stage of this programme. We are expecting that more will happen along the line. What we are doing today is part of the digitisation process.
“The aim of this scheme which we want to launch today is for every civil servant in Anambra State to be duly identified. This time, it is no longer a matter of physical verification for you to know who is in the system or where the person is coming from”, Igwegbe said.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Anambra State ICT Agency, Chukwuemeka Agbata, said that the idea was to eliminate all forms of fakery and identity theft within the government circle in the state.
“Let me boldly say that this is the first time in the history of Anambra and under the visionary leadership of Governor Soludo that civil servants and all other government’s employees can easily identify themselves on the go while government and citizens can equally identify them with ease.
“We are going to empower Ndi Anambra to be able to verify but we will limit what they can see. But if you claim to be anything, every Onye Anambra can ask you to identify yourself.
“Once you bring out your ID card, whether on your phone or the physical copy, there is something called the QR code behind it.
“With this, once the person scans it with their phone’s camera, it will take them to our database and show them who you are. So, the idea of hiding under anything fake is actually gone”, he said.
Agbata said that the first set of the computers had been distributed and that phase two would soon follow. He said that “the idea is to give our civil servants access to devices that they need like the Head of Service mentioned.”
“We are working frantically to bring the internet to the secretariat such that you will not need to go to the cyber cafe. At the very minimum, you will have access to one or two computers in your office and access to the internet to work with”, he added.