The Government Secretary of Ghana’s Nationwide Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, has insisted that the federal government owes the ID-issuing company excellent arrears of virtually $80 million for the manufacturing of ID playing cards.
The debt owed by the federal government is a part of the explanation why over three million Ghana Playing cards had been withheld early this 12 months by some companions of the NIA, in accordance with a current audio report by MyJoyOnline.
The NIA solely took an order for half cost by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Attah for the playing cards to be launched for distribution, the publication reveals.
It’s believed that the federal government debt has negatively affected the manufacturing of the ID card, which is more and more being solicited for entry to completely different providers.
Over time, there was a backlog within the issuance of Ghana Playing cards, which has significantly affected the lives of residents, making it tough for a lot of of them to adjust to a authorities directive for all SIM playing cards to be re-registered utilizing the digital ID.
There’s additionally an ongoing biometric voter registration marketing campaign within the nation with the Ghana Card being the principle credential required. Many say they’re unbale to register for the upcoming basic elections due to lack of ID playing cards.
This comes because the Chairperson of the Ghana Elections Fee (EC) Jean Mensa has defined that the compilation of the voter’s register can be finished utilizing the voter’s card and never the Ghana Card.
In a current press outing, Mensa mentioned the EC will use the voter’s playing cards as a result of it identifies voters primarily based on their polling stations, which permits for correct preparations forward of the elections, GhanaWeb reports.
She mentioned with the voter’s card, the EC will be capable to know the variety of potential voters in every polling station and adequately plan for them.
“At the pointing of voting, we have the biometric verification devices and we feed in everybody’s details from that particular polling station in the kit. So, when you come to vote, your biometrics are verified, your fingerprints and face are verified. We are not able to do this with the Ghana Card,” mentioned Mensa as quoted by GhanaWeb.
The EC Chair additionally gave an replace of the continued restricted voter’s registration within the nation, saying over 182,000 individuals had registered throughout the first six days of the train.
In a Ghana Card-related story, Prof Attafuah has opined that banks and different monetary establishments within the nation would curb the extent of fraud within the sector in the event that they used the Ghana Card for account holder authentication.
The NIA boss made the comment this month throughout an occasion to mark the 2023 ID Day, during which he emphasised the significance of digital identification within the attainment of the UN’s Sustainable Improvement Objectives, writes GhanaWeb.
He mentioned banks in Ghana have misplaced greater than 162 million Ghanaian cedi (US$14 million) to fraud.
Ghana recently launched a nationwide follow-up exercise for Ghana Card registration.
Article Subjects
biometrics | digital ID | elections | financial services | Ghana | Ghana Card | National Identification Authority (NIA)
Author: Ayang Macdonald
Date: 2023-09-26 16:33:08
