We can’t guarantee that most people will get their Ghana cards by 30th September - NIA

According to the Authority, there’s no guarantee that all Ghanaians will card their card within the stipulated deadline.

In an interview with TV3, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NIA, Prof. Kenneth Attafuah said his outfit was not established to operate by deadlines but rather in perpetuity.

“NIA was not set up with a specific deadline,” he stressed.

“NIA is an organisation set up in perpetuity. What that means is that we are to deliver our mandate pretty much the same like the hospital or a maternity ward that people go there as and when they need to.”

He explained that the law that set up the NIA required it to conduct a mass registration within a one-year period and get Ghanaians who turn 15 years and non-citizens the luxury to register.

Prof Ken Attafuah ece-auto-gen

“That is the scheme prescribed by law and that is the scheme we are implementing and we are doing so in perpetuity. There is no timeline and the intendment of the law is that people will go to the NIA at their leisure and pleasure to go and get registered and those people will be those who were not captured during registration.”

Prof Attafuah, however, expressed hope that a large chunk of Ghanaians out of the over 800,000 left will get their cards for the SIM re-registration before the latest deadline.

The national identity cards, popularly known as the Ghana Cards, have become the primary document for the recent re-registration of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful, while addressing the press on Sunday, said she had to extend the deadline again “reluctantly”.

“Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a final conditional extension.”