News:
Dr. Abudu Abdul Ganiyu
July 15, 2022
Acting Head of Corporate Affairs, of the National Identification Authority (NIA) Dr. Abudu Abdul Ganiyu has clarified that registration for the Ghana has no deadline as a section of Ghanaians perceive.
According to him they are an identity management organization, and theirs is to continue to build the data base for Ghanaians with the card, so that continuously Ghanaians would be using the Ghana card for the various services and institutions that need them.
And as the law requires various institutions want to rely on the Ghana card; and those institutions with their mandates can give deadlines, but as far as Ghana card is concerned, “you can wake up any day any time get to our regional or district offices and get registered for your card; no one is going to tell you registration is over”.
According to him, the best practice all over the world is to get eighty (80) percent of your national population on the nation identity register, otherwise it cannot be used for any purpose; it would mean that majority of the people would be cut out. And the reason why we embark on a mass registration system, so that they would successfully build that data base from the start, he added.
“We have gone through all the regions of our country, we even conducted a mop up exercise, we have more than 80 percent of Ghanaians who are 15 years and above on the register; for persons who have not registered, the opportunity has been given them to go to our 292 operational offices”.
Dr. Abudu Abdul in his engagement with members of the Parliamentary Press Corps (PPC) not that their challenge has been budgetary constraints and they are to come out with road map of registering Ghanaians who are zero to 14; “the modalities for that particular registration would be different from the adult population; they may be issued a card that is different from what we have given to the adult.
The NIA officials were in Parliament on Thursday, July 15, 2022 to brief Parliament on their operations, as members of Parliament pointed out the challenges being witnessed in their constituencies. And it’s the third time that the NIA has appeared before parliament Dr. Abudu Abdul noted, Some MPs have been concerned with the challenges that people face when they want to obtain their cards, “what we have done today is to attempt to address most of those questions, deal with the challenges and provide a clear indications of what they are going to do to ensure every Ghanaian is able to register for the card”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com