Ghana Card: NIA registers over 300,000 applicants in 3 weeks

More than 300,000 people in the Volta Region of Ghana have been registered onto the National Identification Authority Database, The Ghana Report‘s checks have revealed.

Information exclusively available to The Ghana Report indicates that a total of Three Hundred and Eighteen Thousand and Twenty-Two (318, 022) applicants have been registered so far with some Two Hundred thousand (200,000)  applicants in the process of receiving their Ghana cards.

This news comes at a time where there are concerns about the effectiveness of the process in the Volta Region following a slow start due to some technical challenges.

Confirming the information to The Ghana Report(TGR) in an interview, Head of Corporate Affairs at the Authority, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI), Francis Palmdeti said the experience in the Volta Region has been better than that of Greater Accra region.

“Initially, the team was a bit anxious about challenges to do with network connectivity but I am happy to tell you that the Volta Region has been an amazing experience. There has been significant improvement as compared to Greater Accra. The registration is going on smoothly,” he said to TGR. 

The spokesperson of the Authority adds that there are no plans of extending the registration period in the Volta Region beyond the earlier announced timeline.

“There is no decision to extend the registration exercise but there will be an extension for issuance of cards in areas where applicants have not received their Ghana card,” he stressed.

The National Identification Authority was set up in 2003 under the Office of the President with the mandate to issue national ID cards and manage the National Identification System (NIS).

The full mandate of the NIA includes the establishment of a national data center so as to manage a national database, as well as to set up a system to collect, process, store, retrieve and disseminate personal data on the population (Ghanaian citizens – both resident and non-resident, and legally and permanently resident foreign nationals), ensure the accuracy, integrity and security of such data, and to issue and promote the use of national identity cards in Ghana.