Call made for amendment of National ID Law

National Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Kofi Adams has disclosed that his party wants Act 950 amended.

Act 950, otherwise known as the National Identification Amendment Law 2017, is what empowers the issuance of new identity cards to Ghanaians by the National Identification Authority (NIA).

The new cards, to be called Ghana Cards, were scheduled to begin being distributed on Monday, May 28 but the planned exercise was indefinitely called off.

The supervising body, the NIA, has since apologised for the inability to fulfil its announcement.

But concerns have already been raised about the documents to present before registering.

Only birth certificates and passports would be accepted for the registration as per the National Identification Law.

Speaking on TV3’s New Day on Saturday, Mr Adams said the NDC is calling for a review of the Law to have voters ID cards included in required documents for registration.

He explained that from the checks of his party only seven million of Ghana’s total population have birth certificates.

This he says contrasts with the 16 million Ghanaians registered as voters.

As a result, he argued, it would have been easier for the NIA to accept voters’ ID cards since that will get them more than half of their targeted number of 30 million Ghanaians.

Mr Adams further argued that the required documents for the registration – as stipulated by Act 950 – come with costs and not many Ghanaians can afford it.

But since citizenship is a right, every adult of 18 years and over, and proven Ghanaian, must have a voters’ ID, Mr Adams observed.

Therefore, he said the voters’ ID needs to be accepted, and so the provisions in the Act will have to be amended to have it backed by law.

His call was backed by Dr Carmynta Baezie, a former head of Security and Exchange Commission.

Dr Baezie said adding the voters’ ID to the required documents will help matters.