NIA explains main reason for nationwide Ghana Card mop-up exercise

The National Identification Authority (NIA) has explained the main reason for its nationwide mop-up exercise.

The NIA says its mop-up exercise for the Ghana Card registration has become necessary due to its failure to meet its target.

According to the Authority, its target was to capture 80 percent of all registrable population in the country.

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Acting Director of Communications of the Authority, ACI Francis Palmdeti says they are yet to meet their target and it has become necessary to do a mop-up exercise.

“We have already done Upper West, Upper East, Ashanti, Central, Western North, Western, Volta, and Oti Regions. We are left with Greater Accra, Bono, Bono East, and Ahafo Regions. We are starting the Greater Accra on 24th August and end on the 8th of September and the start Bono on 27th September and end on the 8th of October.”

He further stressed on the importance of the card and urged all who have not registered to get registered.

“The law in this country about identification is the NIA Act so when you take our regulations LI 2111 which talks about the National ID card talks about the mandatory use of the card indicates 17 services in which you can only access with the NIA card. So in applying for a passport, you need the Ghana card, Drivers license you need the NIA card, opening a bank account, you also need the NIA card, registering as a voter, paying taxes, insurance, pensions, land transactions, services and applications from State institutions, all you need the NIA card. All these services will require you to use the NIA card when it comes to identification,” he said on Citi Breakfast Show.

The Authority was seeking to register over 16 million Ghanaians.

NIA had registered 11,063,259 eligible Ghanaians as of the time the exercise was discontinued in the Eastern Region in April 2020.

The NIA commenced the mass Ghana Card registration exercise in 2019.