By MATTHEW VARI
THE issue of the constitutional right to freedom of citizens was a topic of query, on Friday in parliament, in relation the National Identification System that has been rolled out currently throughout the country.
Governor for Morobe Kelly Naru raised his concern to the Minister for national Planning of the exercise impeding the privacy rights of citizens and the security of information obtained.
“There is great concern and it appears that these exercises are bordering on the threat to violate certain sacred and fundamental rights of citizens of this country guaranteed by the PNG constitution,” Mr Naru said.
“I am referring to the right to privacy and confidentiality, the right to freedom of information and expression.”
“For the record can you tell this house and the nation under what constitution and legal basis is this identification process being rolled out.”
Responding the query, Planning Minister Charles Able said that the basis of the data system was to enable effective planning by the national government to meet the needs of citizens in the country.
“One of the things that PNG has lacked is the lack of good statistics and data- we have never fully understood the demographic of our country, the movements of our people,” Minister Able said.
“Hence it has hampered targeting our plans and development activities, getting the CPI (Consumer Price Index) figures, the household, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and business survey so that once and for all we can get accurate GDP information.”
“This is a part of a broader exercise to once and for all get our statistics ready and up to date, and the national ID program is simply a part of that, the governor refers to the rights of citizens we understand and acknowledge that.”
Able said that the interest of government is the fundamental rights to the peoples needs in regards housing, education, health, and many of the things it currently struggles to deliver.
“In order to do that best you need a good population information management system- that is the fundamental underlying basis.”
“In the government there is an agency entitled by law the Civil Registry Act and have the necessary protect the issues around that information.”
“What we have done in our attempt to fix this system and also empower the registry office and bring it into the fold of this exercise as well.”
He said the legislation brought through has been fully embedded and authorized by law- going through the relevant provisions that give the registry office the authority and power to collect information.
“The constitutional requirements are already in place with the agency responsible- what we are doing is empowering that agency to better do that work and extend its reach of the collection of information now through the National Identity Information System and Data base.”
“I don’t think there are any issues at law because we have covered them already; however, it does not mean that the concerns are not there,” Able added.
No comments:
Post a Comment