Registrants frustrated on first day of Ghana Card issuance

The National Identification Authority (NIA) last Wednesday began issuing registrants with Ghana Cards, albeit as the Daily Graphic has observed, patronage of the exercise has been low.

The exercise was set to start last week Monday but was rescheduled for last Wednesday and will be on till Thursday, June 18.

The NIA intends to distribute 3,875,441 cards in 5,635 registration centres across all the 16 regions of the country.

More than 11 million Ghanaians are expected to be issued with the Ghana Card in an exercise that is expected to last over eight days.

The cards, once obtained, can be used for the voters registration exercise the Electoral Commission (EC) intends to undertake, beginning from June 30, this year.

Observation

Meanwhile, checks by the Daily Graphic across the country show that people are not exhibiting the same enthusiasm with which they turned up to register for the cards last year.

Many of the centres were very quiet, a sharp contrast to the scenes of long winding queues of people eager to register, some of whom had queued for days.

Some officials of the NIA the Daily Graphic spoke to blamed the situation on low publicity and the uncertainty that had surrounded the exercise.

They, therefore, called for intensification of announcements regarding the issuance of the Ghana Cards in order to motivate people to turn out for their cards.

All said, some registrants who showed up to collect their cards were left disappointed as their cards could not be found.

At the centres visited, there were Veronica buckets placed at vantage points, with ‘Wear your nose mask’ signs erected to sensitise registrants to the need to do so, while all NIA officials at post wore nose masks and hand gloves.

Verification

As of midday last Saturday, only two people had showed up to collect their cards at the Rect Academy in the Ga Central District, out of the 160 cards on hand to be issued.

The Supervising Registration Officer (SRO), Mr Bernard Effah, said before giving out the cards, applicants were asked a series of questions, after which an officer checked through the NIA’s photo album to verify the authenticity of the applicant.

“We ask for their full names, dates of birth and other details just to be sure they are the real applicants, after which they either sign or thumbprint the verification document before we give out the cards. Those whose names are in the album but whose cards are not available are asked to come back the following day,” he said.

Mr Effah attributed the cause of delay in issuing out cards to applicants to inconsistencies in data provided by the affected applicants, including irregularities in their names and dates of birth.

No photo album

At the Tesano Baptist Church centre, there were no photo albums to confirm the truthfulness of the 151 applicants whose cards were ready at the centre.

The SRO, Mr Samuel Agyekum, said he was unable to give out the cards to the 20 applicants who had reported at the centre because he could not verify their identities.

“Without the photo album, we cannot distribute the cards. This morning we had our patrol team come round with some photo albums; unfortunately, this centre is yet to receive its photo album,” he said.