NIA to set up 68 centers in Accra for card collections – Communications Director

The National Identification Authority is to set up 68 ‘card collection’ centers in the Greater Accra region in the coming week following its failure to distribute Ghana cards to persons who successfully went through the process last month.

The authority failed to print 581,767 cards instantly (largely due to connectivity problems) – a situation which has left long winding queues at several registration centers across the capital since the end of the registration process in Accra.

The registration exercise which started in the Greater Accra region came to a successful end on July 6, 2019 with a total of 1,972,692 qualified Ghanaians being registered unto the system.

Checks by The Ghana Report at Day Care Centre Nima JHS and surrounding communities show that successful applicants in the registration process were asked to report to a ‘card issuance center’ at the Information Service for their printed cards.

Unfortunately, no NIA official was available to distribute the cards to the rather agitated people who had massed up at the center for hours when our reporters got to the location.

One applicant lamented bitterly about how she had trekked to the center since monday with the hope of returning with her Ghana Card but has been constantly met with disappointment.

She said she registered at the Nima JHS and was told by the Registration official to come for the card at the Information Service on Monday, July 15, 2019. But as of the time of filing this report, she still did not have her Ghana Card.

“I charter a taxi all the way from Nima at a cost of fourteen (14) cedis to this place every day, I leave my work and spend the little money I have to come all the way here and for what? Now, they are telling us to come back on Monday”, she said.

In contrast to the above report from applicants, Head of Corporate Affairs, ACI Francis Palmdeti in an exclusive interview told The Ghana Report that the outstanding number of cards to be printed are due for collection at various centres which will be set up in the Accra East district.

In all, 68 temporal issuance centres will be set up within the Accra East municipality to ensure each and every other applicant gets their card.

He further said that the site survey teams have been deployed to the Volta region to ensure issues to do with connectivity which was on the high in Greater Accra will not be repeated in the Volta region. The registration team is set to start on the 22nd of July, 2019 to 14th August, 2019 and will follow subsequently to the Oti region.

Below are the Proposed dates for the registration exercise for all the other regions

 Registration and issuance of cards in the Volta and Oti regions would commence on July 25 and end on August 1, 2019.
 The Northern, Savannah and North East regions will have their turn from August 13 to September 2, 2019.
 That of the Upper East and Upper West regions will begin from September 12 to 29, 2019.
 The exercise will continue in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions from October 10 to 30, 2019, while that of the Western and Western North regions will commence from November 11 to December 2, 2019.
 The Ashanti Region, will have its turn from December 19, 2019 to January 31, 2020, while the exercise will be concluded in the Eastern and Central regions from February 12, 2020 to March 4, 2020 and between March 13 and 31, 2020, respectively.