NIA registration fiasco: Process suspended indefinitely

MyNewsGh.com can confirm that despite the National Identification Authority’s (NIA’s) Monday apology to the people of Ghana for being unable to start the national mass registration exercise with the selected institutions, the process has been suspended indefinitely.

The NIA in a statement yesterday, it stated that, “The National Identification System has suffered a technical hitch, which has affected the NIA’s ability to commence roll-out as scheduled, details of the technical difficulties will be communicated to the general public in due course.”

The statement further said “Our technical team is working fervently to resolve the issue for registration to begin. Under the circumstance registration was suspended today until the problem is completely resolved”.

MyNewsGh.com is reliably informed that the process has been suspended indefinitely by the NIA as they were not fully prepared for the roll out as at the time they announced it.

We learnt they were forced to put up a show to save face after many public announcements of dates they were unable to meet.

The much-anticipated exercise was to begin yesterday with staff of the Jubilee House, Judicial Service, Ministry of Defence, National Security, BNI, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration’s Research Department, Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Immigration Service but there was no show when Staff who cut off their work to get the card were stranded without a single NIA Staff or machine in place for the exercise.

“The NIA unreservedly apologizes to the personnel of the various institutions who were to begin registration this morning at 7:00am for the inconvenience they have had to endure,” it said

The registration, if it had began, would have ended in those institutions on June 8, 2018.

Under the programme, the unique identification numbers would be given to citizens to help create a central database and provide the platform for other state institutions to synchronize their data for efficient service delivery and to facilitate socio-economic development.

The institutions include the Social, Security and National Insurance Trust, the Electoral Commission, the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Passport Office, the Births and Deaths Registry, the Driver, Vehicle and Licensing Authority and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Government has emphasized that an efficient national database was essential for building a prosperous modern society and thus has been resourcing the NIA with the requisite resources to do the job.

In March this year, it presented 62 Nissan Pick-Up vehicles, 60 motorbikes, two generators and other essential logistics to the NIA.

The exercise is scheduled to begin in the Greater Accra Region and move to Central Region, after two months, and proceed to cover every part of the country.