IPNews-Monrovia: The Liberia telecommunication Authority (LTA) has directed telecom subscribers to obtain a National Identification Card or risk being temporarily blocked by GSM operators.

The National Identification Registry (NIR), LoneStar MTN and Orange Liberia have signed a memorandum of Understanding that everyone with a SIM card must have an identity card. Anyone who does comply will be temporarily suspended, as a way of encouraging them to register using their national ID.

LTA will monitor the process that the National Identification Registry will implement along with the two mobile operating companies. Ewdina Crump Zackpah is the acting chairperson of the LTA and said the SIM/RUIM card registration system will help the government fight crime by identifying criminals.

Under this arrangement, it is expected that the NIR will enrol about 1 million citizens and residents in over 3,000 locations in Liberia in the next year, a target that is ten times what the NIR has been able to achieve in a given year, according to Tiah Nagbe, executive director of the NIR.

IPNews visit at the officers of the National Identification Registry Wednesday, November 4, 2020, gathered that the system for processing and Printing of the National Identification Cards were all down.

Fourth night ago the World Bank blacklisted the Kenyan company contracted to do the identification card for the National Identification Registry and the license plates at the Ministry of Transport, for fraud.

According to a dispatch from the World Bank, the World Bank banned the Kenyan IT firm, Techno Brain (Kenya) Limited and its United Arab Emirates(UAE)-based parent company Techno Brain Global FZ-LLC for fraud in an Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project in Liberia.

The Kenyan unit will remain banned from World Bank supported projects for 28 months while its parent company will remain blacklisted for 10 months.

“The debarments make Techno Brain Kenya and Techno Brain UAE ineligible to participate in projects and operations financed by institutions of the World Bank Group. It is part of a settlement agreement under which the companies acknowledge culpability and responsibility for the underlying sanctionable practices and agree to meet specified corporate compliance conditions as a condition for release from debarment,” the World Bank said in a statement.

The project, since renamed as the Public Financial Management Reforms for Institutional Strengthening, was designed to improve domestic revenue mobilisation systems and strengthen financial control and accountability in public finances.

According to the facts of the case, Techno Brain Kenya and Techno Brain UAE engaged in an arrangement to obtain and edit confidential bidding documentation so as to influence the awarding of a contract in their favor.

According to a source at the Investment Commission in Monrovia, ‘Techno Brain’, was awarded a twenty-five years contract for the management and production of Liberia’s biometric identification cards which has sparked controversies over the last weeks, with reports of massive sale of the cards to none-Liberians.

It may be recalled, the House of Representative cited both officials of the National Identification registry, the Immigration Commission and the Liberian National Police to explain reasons for the unprecedented sale and circulation of the National I.D. cards.

The National Identification Cards, are major national security elements in determining the nationality of a person, especially Liberia which boarders are porous.

Sources at the National Identification Registry, told IPNews that Techno Brain has an additional fifteen years onto its twenty-five years contract signed in 2017, before the ushering-in of the George Weah adminstration.

Additional information reaching IPNews says the same ‘Techno Brain’, was also granted a ten years contract to managed and produce driver Licenses for Liberia.

The acquisition of driver license has been a serious challenge in recent times with report of serious duplication., yet, Minister Samuel Wulu still guarantees the remaining six years contract to Techno Brain.

In all this, authorities at both the National Identification registry and the Ministry of Transport, continue to conduct business with Techno Brain even in the face of its reported criminal engagements with the government of Liberia as outlined by the World Bank.