The registration of Ghanaians below age 15 for the Ghana card will commence in 2023, the Acting Head of Corporate Affairs at the National Identification Authority (NIA), Abudu Abdul Ganiyu, has stated.
Speaking on the Prime Morning Show in Accra and monitored by the Ghanaian Times on Monday, he said majority of the population in the country who transacted businesses were above age 15 and was important they had the Ghana Card first while deferring the registration of persons below age 15 to next year.
The move followed the decision by the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to extend the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card registration exercise to September 30, 2022 to allow more Ghanaians acquire the Ghana card since that would be the only document required.
Mr Ganiyu explained that NIA had been able to register about 90 per cent of persons above age 15 and that was encouraging since they were majority of the population who needed the card most.
“These are people who normally transact with an ID card, for instance,Bank Account, Pension Data, SIM card registration among others but early next year, we will start registering Ghanaians who are below age 15,” he explained.
He, therefore, assured the general public that NIA did not have deadlinesand would continue to register individuals to enable every citizen to have their cards easy and quickly, adding about 292 permanent regional and district offices had been created across the country.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr KennethAshigbey, advised Ghanaians without Ghana card to seize the opportunity of the extension of the SIM card re-registration to get their Ghana cards and register their SIM cards.
“NIA are working to ensure that cards are made available in all the district and regional offices so that a lot more people could get their Ghana card to re-register their SIM cards, I am hopeful that Ghanaians will take advantage of this and make the best out of it,” he said.
Dr Ashigbey pleaded with government to provide more resources and logistics to NIA to ramp up the registration process for the Ghana cards.
“The ongoing Ghana card registration has been characterised by long queues and that has demoralised most Ghanaians from going ahead to get their cards and is significantly contributing to the delay in the SIM re-registration process,” he said.
BY ANITA ANKRAH