Call: 876-927-9941–3 
Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says the National Identification System (NIDS) will be fully operational this year.
“I’m hoping that by the end of the year, we will have a significant portion, if not the majority of the population properly identified in the National Identification System,” Mr. Holness said.
He was speaking during a tour of the NIDS card production centre at the Post and Telecommunication Department on South Camp Road in Kingston, on January 4.
The facility will be responsible for producing the identification (ID) cards issued under NIDS. It includes the production centre, vault area and enrolment site.
Prime Minister Holness, in outlining the importance of NIDS, noted that when a service is provided, the Government must be able to identify the beneficiaries and “be able to account to you the citizens, as to how your funds are spent.”
“So there is, even now, a greater need to be able to identify who benefits when public resources are spent. But, more than that, we need to be able to identify our citizens so we can properly plan. One of the big problems we have always faced, as a government, is that some get, and others don’t,” he said.
“One of the reasons why you have that problem is that we just don’t account for everyone. So, you’re not able to plan for everyone, and what we’re doing, in our 60th year [of Independence] with the establishment of the NIDS, is to ensure that every single Jamaican can be included, accounted for, and properly served,” Mr. Holness added.
Programme Director for NIDS, Dr. Warren Vernon, indicated that the system is about 80 per cent completed.
“We intend to use the next four months to fine-tune the system [and] do all of our testing. We are also using the time to set up enrolment sites across Kingston to facilitate the pilot. [Further] we are in the process of fine-tuning all of the requirements to establish the National Identification and Registration Authority,” Dr. Vernon informed.
https://jis.gov.jm/nids-will-be-fully-operational-this-year-pm/