Head of Public Affiars at the National Identification Authority (NIA) Bertha Dzeble has indicated that registration under the scheme is compulsory for both citizens and foreigners.
She, therefore, asked nationals who have not been registered to contact the offices of NIA across the country to get registered.
Speaking on TV3�s Midday Live on Wednesday, Ms Dzeble announced that the much-awaited mass registration of residents of the three northern regions is scheduled to come off soon after the Authority received funds for the project.
�We are opening regional offices to get the exercise underway,� she said.
Asked about the relevance of the exercise after it took off in 2008, Ms Dzeble pointed out that the system is built to link up with other biometric registration systems in the country �to clean up their database�.
�This year government has said it is going to resource the Authrority,� she said, referring to the 2013 budget statement.
According to her, the Authority is awaiting approval of the budget by cabinet in order to get the funds to continue work, especially sharing of ID cards.
�So we are hoping that we will see a lot of improvement in our work this year,� she stressed.
�We are under the Office of the President, so we will continue to work with government,� she told Wendy Laryea.
So far the Authority has registered 13 million Ghanaians under the scheme and the number is expected to rise to 16 million after the mass registration in the three northern regions.
Government has given the Authority GH�4 million to aid in its exercise.
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