TANZANIA, Dar es Salaam: VICE-PRESIDENT, Dr Phillip Mpango has called for
concerted efforts in Home Affairs ministry to achieve universal access to national identification cards so as to support further expansion of financial services.He said in Dar es Salaam on Thursday that despite great strides made in extending access to financial services and reducing exclusion, there remained challenges to drive uptake and usage of the services due to among other things, delays in rolling out the national identification cards.
“We need to ensure universal access of national identity cards to facilitate access to formal financial services,” said Dr Mpango said at the launch of the 3rd National Financial Inclusion Framework (2023-2028).
Tanzania has made significant strides in boosting financial inclusion-thanks to significant growth in mobile money and banking services.
According to Finscope Report of 2013 financial inclusion stands at 76 per cent of adults in 2023, a significant 11 per cent point increase from 65 per cent in 2017.
Mobile money services uptake rose from 60 per cent to 72 per cent of adults and banking services usage also grew from 17 per cent to 22 per cent between 2017 and 2023.
However, despite the achievements, about 6.3 million adults Tanzanians remain fully excluded, where women and youth under 25, dependents and rural dwellers have the highest exclusion levels of between 40-80 per cent and regions like Singida, Tabora and Pemba have exclusion levels above 40 per cent of adults.
Lack of clients’ documentation, including national identification cards, voter cards, passports or driver’s licence, has been identified as among critical barriers for uptake and usage of financial services.
Other challenges include low financial literacy level, high cost of financial services, limited distribution of financial access points, limited ownership of smartphones, inadequate physical and ICT infrastructure and policy and regulatory constraints that limit financial inclusion.
The Vice-President said there was also need for enhanced collaboration between the government and the private sector to strengthen consumer security against cybercrime acts, make financial services more affordable and extending sharing financial service infrastructure.
The government waived Common External Tariff (CET) for imported smart cards for the National Identification Authority (NIDA) in this 2023/2024 budget to facilitate issuance of the national identity cards.
The CET waiver is within wider government plans to issue universal national identification cards to the citizens that will be integrated with other identity cards to cut costs incurred in purchasing raw cards and printing of IDs.
The Home Affairs Minister, Hamad Masauni said in Parliament in May that the government was consulting US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to explore possibilities of issuing the universal cards.
Mr Masauni said the Universal National ID card was also meant to do away with hassles that people were going through before securing the national ID.
Earlier on, the Finance Minister, Mwigulu Nchemba said the government recognises efforts and contribution of the financial sector to the growth of the economy and development.
He said the sector had recorded significant expansion with assets growth reaching 17.2 per cent and its contribution to the total economy reaching 9.2 per cent.
He said the sector remained a key employer of skilled and non-skilled labour force.
He called upon the stakeholders from the government and the private sector to enhance collaboration in the implementation of the implementation of the national financial inclusion framework and help the country achieve targets for digital economy.
“I call upon stakeholders in implementation of the national financial inclusion framework to help Tanzania to leapfrog in digital economy. We have to achieve making Tanzania a cash lite society.
He said the focus should be on the groups of Tanzanians identified to be left behind in accessing formal financial services – women, youth, people with special needs, farmers and fishers.
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