By Letwin Mubonesi
Civil servants have been given a deadline up to Monday next week to register on the biometric registration exercise or they will risk being struck off the payroll, as Government presses ahead with reforms to restore order in the civil service by flushing out ghost workers.
Biometric Registration is the collection of bio-information on all members (Active Members, Inactive Members and Pensioners).
Biometric verification is any means by which a person can be uniquely identified by evaluating one or more distinguishing biological traits.
Unique identifiers include fingerprints, hand geometry, earlobe geometry as well as signatures. This biometric registration process is being implemented with the assistance of the World Bank and is part of efforts to weed out ghost workers and modernize management of the civil service.
Public Service Commission chairperson Doctor Vincent Hungwe said the majority of the civil servants had been registered.
“The Public Service Commission in conjunction with its technical partner, the World Bank, is pleased to advise all its stakeholders of the progress to date of the biometric authentication project. The bulk of the civil servants have now been registered for the biometric authentication project and we are now doing a mop-up exercise which should be completed by 30th September 2019.”
“We wish to advise those civil servants who have not registered on the biometric system to do so by 30 September 2019 at their district offices, failure of which they will be taken off the Salary Service Bureau payroll,’ said Dr Hungwe.
Dr Hungwe said that the second phase of the project will commence on October 1.
He said that, “during the second phase, from the 1st of October 2019 to 31st of December 2019, part of the work will be to ensure that information within SSB as an entity responsible for effective and efficient salary management interfaces with the national biometric registration data.”
“In phase 3, the process will include validation of data on the national database through engagement of an independent service provider. After data validation and system integrity checks, the system will then be commissioned by early 2020.”
The Public Service Commission is engaged in various initiatives to improve the operations of the public service which is critical in the implementation of Government programmes, especially the Transitional Stabilization Programme (TSP) aimed at putting the economy on a growth trajectory.
Last month, the Public Service Commission launched its Strategic Plan aimed at reforming the public service and improving productivity, accountability and remuneration as well as pension reforms among other changes. The Strategic Plan will run until the end of next year.
Biometric identification eliminates all hassles associated with Identification Documents, passwords and other possession or knowledge based identification methods, making identification a truly convenient experience.
Again, accessing a biometrically secured logical or physical facility requires the presence of an authorized individual following a biometric scan. This generates reliable and auditable logs of accessing the facility. Users cannot deny these logs as they are a proof of willful access and it improves the user accountability.
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