This is possibly the best appointment this PML-N government has made
LAHORE: The first chairman of NADRA, Zahid Ehsan, was a non-technical person and was, therefore, unable to induct the then emerging technologies for secure identification. Fortunately, Ehsan was replaced quickly by Saleem Moeen in 2001. Moeen proved his brilliance by bringing Pakistan to the forefront of secure identification on the international platform by introducing the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) and supporting ID documents such as NICOP and POC, by the end of 2001.
Three years later in 2004, the Pakistan Biometric Passport was introduced by Moeen, which was the first in the world to conform to the International Civil Aviation Organisation standards. These achievements gave the country great international recognition.
Upon Moeen’s retirement in 2008, two political appointees were placed as chairmen. Though both were technically qualified, their political bias did not help continue the momentum Moeen had initiated. For the past one year, a bureaucrat has been serving as the acting chairman of NADRA, who could obviously not do justice to a technical organisation of wide international repute. The government has now appointed Usman Mobin to the chairman’s post. This is possibly the best appointment this PML-N government has made. Mobin has served as the chief technical officer of NADRA for the last 12 years. He is, along with his team, credited with developing the organisation’s software and has also contributed towards fine-tuning solutions.
Aleem M Ahmad
Published in The Express Tribune, February 7th, 2015.
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