National Identification Authority to set up 13 offices at GRA by April

The National Identification Authority (NIA) says it is working towards setting up 13 offices at the Ghana Revenue Authority's (GRA) offices by April 1, 2021.

This is to allow persons who want to update their tax identification numbers (TIN) and other personal details to do so.

This follows the President's announcement during the State-of-the-Nation-Address in Parliament, on Tuesday that, the NIA cards or Ghana Card numbers would become TIN, SSNIT and NHIA numbers from April 1, this year.

In a media interview, in Accra, on Wednesday, Professor Kenneth Agyemang-Attafuah, the Executive Director, said the NIA had received technical clearance from the Public Services Commission and awaiting financial clearance from the Finance Ministry to open regional and district offices across the country for the Ghana-Card registration.

That would enable persons who could not register for the Ghana-Card during the mass registration phase to do so, he said.

However, persons who urgently needed the cards could still register for the Ghana-Card at the NIA's headquarters from March 15, under premium service.

However, the applicant would be required to pay GHC250 as fees.

Prof. Agyemang-Attafuah explained that the Ghana-Card was a 148-kilobyte chip embedded, which was capable to accommodate all the biometric cards in the country.

More so, he said, it had robust, secure and futuristic features that would prevent it from being hacked or interfered with by criminal elements or cyber fraudsters.

The NIA, he said, had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ghana Revenue Authority, Passport Office, Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority and Social Security and National Insurance Trust, to synchronise their biometric cards onto the Ghana-Card electronic database system.

The use of Ghana-Card numbers as tax identification numbers is expected to increase the number of taxpayers from three million to 15.5 million.