The National Identification Authority (NIA) has registered 15,549,242 persons for the National Identification Card (Ghana Card).
For this figure, 14,689,672 cards have been printed and 13,848,697 cards issued the registered Ghanaians who are supposed to be 15 years and older.
The most registrants were from the Ashanti Region with 3,016,319.
The least was from the Ahafo Region where 270,172 persons were registered.
Nationwide, 905,523 persons who registered identified as unemployed whist the top five professions were the farmers, retail traders, entrepreneurs, tailors, teachers and beauticians.
These details were contained in a presentation by the NIA Executive Secretary, Prof Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah.
It has been an over three-year process for the NIA which began with the first phase of the revamped registration which took place on September 15, 2017, where the authority conducted a liveness test of the Ghana Card.
The second phase of the roll-out entailed the registration of, and card issuance to, eligible Ghanaians.
It commenced on June 4, 2018, and run until April 28, 2019, covering workers at the Jubilee House, Parliament House, the Judicial Service, the security sector and several key influencers in society, before being extended to some public and private institutions as well as to three communities; Adentan, La Nkwantanang and Ga East municipalities.
The mass registration exercise then started on April 29, 2019, beginning in the Greater Accra Region.
Thereafter, the NIA conducted the mass registration exercise in all the 16 regions of the country except in the Eastern Region where the exercise was truncated in March 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following the lifting of the COVID-19 restrictions by government and the subsequent resumption of work by NIA, a “Card Issuance Blitz” was started on June 10, 2020, at 5,635 registration centres across the country and ended on June 27, 2020.
A mop-up exercise also started on June 18, 2020, in the Upper West and Upper East Regions and continued throughout the country until September 11.
Data integration
For the practical use of the card, the NIA has negotiated an agreement with ECOWAS to ensure that the Ghana Card complies with the requirements for the ECOWAS ID Card at no extra cost to Ghana.
This ensured that the Ghana Card and the ECOWAS Card was integrated into one card, “thereby saving Ghana millions of cedis.”
The NIA has also signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the Ghana Revenue Authority, National Health Insurance Authority, Social Security and National Insurance Trust, Electoral Commission, and the Driver Vehicle and Licencing Authority “and is currently at various stages of discussions regarding data harmonization and integration with the following organisations.”
These data exchange protocols will result in these agencies no longer producing sector-specific ID cards and saving Ghana hundreds of millions of cedis over the 15-year life cycle of the NIS project.
The NIA has also indicated that it will be registering children aged below 15 years as well as Ghanaians living abroad.
Source:Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
