Monday, as part of the weekly press conference of the Ministry of Communication, Jean-Baptiste St-Cyr, Director of the National Identification Office, revealed that 3 million National Identification Cards (CIN) were produced in 2015. "Because of the elections, the validity of the cards had been delayed for a better participation," explaining that the new biometric system (fingerprint) allows a much better security in the citizen identification process. He said that this ultra sophisticated and reliable system, which cost US $ 50 million to the Haitian government, had nothing to envy to our neighbors in the region.

In addition, he recalled that every adult citizen, not being in possession of their identity card, is liable to a fine of 500 gourdes, stating that in case of loss or theft, the citizen must make a declaration to the police for his safety, adding that the ONI receives no fee for replacing a CIN lost, stolen or damaged. However, recall that in 2017, the law on the renewal and the the pay reprinting of national identification cards will come into force.

He also informed that the United Nations under the Program of Identification and Documentation of Haitian Immigrants (PIDIH), had issued more than 30,000 identification cards (valid for 10 years) to undocumented Haitians in the Dominican Republic and 2,000 other cards will be distributed shortly.

Finally, he announced that in order to provide reliable identification, tamper-proof to everyone, a identification at birth program was launched by the ONI. In this context, the midwives will be very involved in the data collection.

HL/ HaitiLibre