The current identity card issuing system is riddled with identification challenges, numerous entry issues, cards that are never issued, and delays of up to two years.

Cameroon will soon issue biometric national identity cards to citizens within 48 hours after enrolment, eliminating the enormous delays and obstacles that plague the existing system.

In Cameroon, the national ID card is a must-have document for local travel and business transactions. However, the current identity card issuing system is riddled with identification challenges, numerous entry issues, cards that are never issued, and delays of up to two years.

Last Friday, the Delegate General for National Security (DGSN), the government entity, in charge of issuing identifying documents, announced plans to contract a service provider to produce the biometric ID cards on a Build-Operate-Transfer basis.

According to Martin Mbarga Nguélé, DSGN chief, the public, private cooperation would result in the development of three autonomous biometric identity card production facilities in the cities of Yaounde, Douala, and Garoua, as well as at least 15 contemporary biometric enrolment posts in each of the country's ten regional headquarters.

According to the DGSN chief, the total number of identification posts across the country would be expanded from 280 to 543, with 700 permanent and 300 mobile high-tech biometric registration kits deployed to these locations.

"This heavy investment, which will provide quality service and identification documents that can be checked automatically through 1,000 mobile reading terminals, will have a significant and justified impact vis-a-vis the cost of the identity card," Nguélé stated.

"This will be a long-term solution to the ID card issues. It is the responsibility of the head of state to provide the national security apparatus with current working tools and an atmosphere in which to do their duties more effectively."