Hon Speaker, the reply is as follows: We issued tenders for the printing and personalisation infrastructure, as well as for the production of the blank cards on which the information of the holders of identity cards would be printed. We have successfully awarded these tenders to Gemalto SA and Altech Card Solutions, and contracts have been signed. The personalisation machines have been installed and Altech Card Solutions is currently finalising the unique software that will allow the personalisation of the blank cards.
We have also had a demonstration of the installed technology by issuing a few cards to some of the leading citizens in our country. We had a demonstration to both the President and the Deputy President at the Government Printing Works, GPW. The GPW is the main card-production site. We also have a disaster recovery site, where a fourth machine has been installed.
With respect to challenges, members will of course be aware that this is really a pilot project for South Africa. We have never issued a card of this level of security and complexity before. The challenges have arisen primarily from the development of the appropriate software and systems for the integration of the range of elements that will make up the information that will be part of the card.
We have to establish new facilities in the Department of Home Affairs offices for the application enrolment modules, or what is called "live capture". We also have to link all the existing legacy systems, including our fingerprint identification system, the population register, our current track-and-trace systems linked to passport application and production, as well as the existing legacy systems for the new passport production at the GPW. Of course, we are working to ensure that the production of the cards is entirely contactless, from application through to the envelopes with the cards being sent in batches to the couriers. All of this has led to us having to refine, factory-test and, in the next few weeks, site-test to the point where we will be able to announce to the country the call for citizens to come forward to apply for the smart ID cards.
Finally, we had to refurbish our offices because the physical layout was not suitable for a new system. Our offices have been revamped and the live- capture system has been installed. We have also had to install new servers and this has meant recabling many of our offices.
These have been some of the challenges, but we believe the contracts that we have signed and the teams we have assembled will be able to get us to a point where we can issue the smart ID cards.