NIA is a useless venture, it has nothing to show - Hassan Ayariga

The Leader and Founder of the All Peoples Congress (APC) Dr. Hassan Ayariga has described the National Identification Authority's exercise of registering Ghanaians onto a database as a useless venture which has nothing to show.

He says he will have it reviewed and made more useful than it is now.

Speaking on'Ade Akye Abia' program, he explained that the government has spent uselessly on the identification exercise.

"The NPP government with its myopic policies ventured into a fruitless exercise and thus has caused so much financial loss to the state," he said.

He explained further that the National Identification system has to be integrated into one system that will have the data of every Ghanaian and even babies who will be born at various hospitals across the country.

Other than that he says the identification card that has been provided for every Ghanaian will be useless and cannot be used for any purpose.

The National Identification Authority (NIA) says it will soon establish permanent Regional, Municipal, and District offices to allow persons who could not register during the mop-up exercise to do so.

“After this mop-up registration exercise is over, we will establish our permanent Regional, Municipal, and District offices in the next couple of months, where every single child under 15 years will be registered," he explained.

The Executive Secretary of the NIA, Professor Kenneth Attafuah who was speaking during an interview with Accra-based Joy FM, said that, “officials at the offices will also move into the communities to register people while maintaining a presence at the offices so people can walk in and register.

“We are registering everyone, from zero to infinity. We will be working with the birth and death registry so that when the children turn 18 we would know automatically. This will also allow 'football age' to be a thing of the past," he said.

Prof. Attafuah described the Ghana Card as a must-have card, noting that “One would be excluding himself socially, economically and politically without the card."

Importance of Ghana Card

Prof. Attafuah advised Ghanaians to register for the card, noting that there were 17 things that one cannot do without a Ghana Card.

“A person cannot apply for or be issued a passport, drivers’ license, open a bank account, purchase an insurance policy, purchase, transfer and register a land, make a transaction that pertains to pension, register for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and engages in activity that has some social security implications”.

He added that one cannot also “engage in consumer credit transactions, register for voter ID card, make payment of taxes, register for the sim card, or access any government facilities, services, and opportunities that require approvals, permissions or benefits, as the NIA governing board may determine”.

“The Ghana Card also serves as a passport valid for travel within the West Africa sub-region. With the Ghana Card you don’t need to hold a paper passport for travel within the region,” he said.