The Ministry of Innovation & Technology has issued a tender for the procurement of 315 biometric registration kits for a National identification card (ID) Programme initiated more than a decade ago.  Officials are looking to buy fingerprint, iris and document scanners as well as cameras in their bid to register 70 million citizens by the end of 2025. A kit costs between 2,000 and 3,500 dollars.  The tender is under the Ministry's Ethiopian Digital Foundations Project (EDFP), supported in part by 200 million dollars in funding from the World Bank. A National ID Office under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office, which is in charge of the programme, has struck deals with public and private institutions to speed up registrations and availed its database to its partners.  Among these are financial institutions, including the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), Cooperative Bank of Oromia (CBO), Dashen Bank, Bank of Abyssinia and the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE). Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Postal Service Enterprise jumped on board. Other government institutions, including the Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC), have also signed a memorandum of understanding with the ID office.

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