KIGALI - The Rwanda National Police (RNP) will start distributing new electronic driving licences next month to people who registered for them, the head of Traffic Police, Superintendent Robert Niyonshuti has said.

The plastic license will have a built-in data bar that will contain all details of the holder.

The process of registering for the electronic driving licenses commenced in the last quarter of 2008 and according to Niyonshuti, the police is now in the final stages of verifying the lists of the individuals who registered for the new licenses.

Speaking to The New Times yesterday, Niyonshuti said: "registration for the licenses has ended and we are now finalising the process of verification of people put on the list to get them.”

Only those who owned old driving licenses were registered on the list to get the electronic ones. As a way of verification, police are checking details of the old licenses to see if they correspond with details in the police data base.

Niyonshuti however added that there is a number of people who did not register for the new license because they had not got their new national identity cards.

"We have considered those people as well, their registration is commencing mid this month and we request those who had not received the new IDs during the first exercise to come and register,” said the traffic boss.

Asked how Rwandans in the Diaspora would get their driving licences, Niyonshuti said that the National Steering Committee in charge of issuing the electronic identification is working in partnership with all Rwandan embassies abroad to ensure that every national in the Diaspora gets his or her document.

"We will ensure that no Rwandan national misses or faces any hardship in getting the license,” said Niyonshuti.

The new state-of the-art driving licenses cost Rwf50, 000 and the government contracted the famous De La Rue, a British security printing, papermaking and cash handling Systems Company headquartered in Basingstoke Hampshire, to manufacture the cards.

All the driving license categories in Rwanda will be required to be electronic and the new categories that did not exist before such as A1 and B1 for handicapped motorists will also be issued at the same technology and cost.

Another new category is for D1 vehicles that carry over 30 passengers.

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