Former South African president Nelson Mandela is one of the country’s first citizens to be issued with a smart identity (ID) card in Pretoria this morning.

To mark the elderly statesman’s 95th birthday, South Africa’s department of home affairs has issued the smart ID card to his daughter Zindzi Mandela on his behalf.

Mandela remains at a Pretoria hospital where he has been receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection for the past month. The South African presidency has; however, issued a statement today indicating that Mandela’s health is ‘steadily improving’.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s department of home affairs plans to embark on a national roll-out of the smart ID card in the southern African country to replace the country’s old green bar-coded ID book.

The roll-out of the new smart ID cards is expected to be a seven-year process, according to reports.

Earlier this year home affairs minister, Naledi Pandor, announced that the smart ID cards aim to eliminate paperwork involved in the current ID system that makes it easier for criminals to clone ID books.

Pandor explained that her department has been working with technology companies namely, Altech Card Solutions and Gemalto Southern Africa, to facilitate the roll-out of these cards.

South Africa joins African countries such as Nigeria in starting to roll-out smart ID cards to citizens.

The West African nation has embarked on a pilot project to issue 13 million MasterCard-branded National Identity Smart Cards with electronic payment capability.

Nigeria’s new National Identity Smart Card would incorporate the unique National Identification Numbers (NIN) of duly registered persons in that country, it has been reported.