ABOUT 2.9 million Ghanaians, aged 15years and above, have so far been registered by the National Identification Authority (NIA) for the Ghana Card.
Of the figure, exactly 2,902,035, the authority has printed 2,590,526 cards out of which it has issued 1,718,021 to their respective owners.
This data covers registration conducted in the Greater Accra, Volta and Oti Regions between June 4, 2018 and Saturday, September 14, 2019.
Head of NIA Corporate Affairs, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI) Francis Palmdeti disclosed these to the Ghanaian Times yesterday after the latest mass registration exercise in Oti and Volta Regions ended on Saturday.
In Oti, where the registration was done between August 22 and Saturday September 14, 2019, he said a total of 387,057 people were registered while out of 236,348 cards printed, 187,643 have been issued.
He disclosed that the Volta Region exercise, held between July 22 and September 14,2019 had 556,559 registrants adding that 523,984 cards have been printed with 395,175 issued so far.
The remaining, he said covered the Greater Accra exercise that started on June 4, 2018 with staff of public institutions and later residents.
According to ACI Palmdeti, although the registration in Oti and Volta had ended, “all registration centres with backlogs of cards to be printed would continue to issue printed cards to applicants at the centres where they registered from “likewise those in Volta Region”.
However, he said no new registration would be done in the regions until further notice.
The next stop, according to ACI Palmdeti, would be North East, Northern and Savanna regions but dates were yet to be announced.
He said the authority had put in place measures to resolve challenges that might come up and called for support from various stakeholders to make the exercise successful.
ACI Palmdeti charged the citizenry not to aid foreign nationals to register for the Ghana Card as Ghanaians as such practice comes with sanctions when caught.
He said foreign nationals who qualified to register for the cards as foreigners permanently resident in Ghana and those that desired to become Ghanaians, needed to follow due process to register.
Asked if refugees could register for the cards, he said the authority was making arrangement to give them some form of identification and “not necessarily Ghana cards”.
Launched in 2017 the card is a biometric national identification being issued by the NIA to both resident and non-resident Ghanaians and permanently resident foreign nationals as proof of identity,citizenship and residence.
The card and the phased registration exercise is governed by NIA Act, 2006 (Act 707) that gives the Authority the legal impetus and the National Identity Register Act, 2008 (Act 750) that authorises it to collect personal and biometric data.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR