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Today has established from sleuth hounding that drivers legitimately employed by the National Identification Authority (NIA) are now being used as Security Officers (watchmen) by authorities at the state institution. The practice, which started early this year, has been going on for the past nine months, our investigations established. According to the paper�s findings, private security company, WESTEC, was contracted by NIA to provide security for the state institution. But the contract between NIA and WESTEC ended abruptly after the former-NIA, failed to settle several months of debts it owed WESTEC Security Company. Under that circumstance, managers of WESTEC withdrew their security personnel from various security posts of the NIA. Some of the security posts included the entrance of the NIA headquarters and its surroundings. The dire situation, Today discovered, thus compelled authorities at NIA to engage the drivers aside from their employment agreement with the Authority to do extra security detailing job at the entry points of the NIA headquarters. And to ensure that the practice becomes the order of the day, authorities at NIA have designed a time-table which allows the drivers to run night and evening shifts doing security work. But when Today reached the Director of Public Affairs of NIA, Mrs. Bertha Dzeble, via text on phone, she text back stating: �Please I�m on leave so you may want to contact administration.�\ When our reporter pleaded with her to get us somebody at administration to talk to she failed to get back to us. Probing further, it was established that the drivers since the beginning of their security job have not been given even a penny for the extra-work they do�which is providing security at the state facility. What was equally worrying about the practice was the fact that the drivers had not been given any security training�a situation which experts say has the potential of exposing them to external attacks. The paper also learnt that the drivers have been warned by authorities at the state institution from going public on the matter. A source close to NIA told Today that the drivers were mostly treated unfairly, adding that �authorities of NIA treat drivers as though they were not human beings.� According to the source, the NIA was heavily indebted to WESTEC Security Company, and could not comprehend why the state agency will not settle its debts but waste state resources by seeking for loan facility to embark upon a nationwide re-registration exercise. Today also discovered that allowances (per diems) meant for NIA drivers in respect of a mass registration exercise embarked upon by the Authority have for almost one year now not been given to the drivers. The NIA was set up under the Kufuor�s administration in 2003 with the mandate to issue national identification cards and manage the National Identification System (NIS). Armed with this mandate, the Authority started an initial national registration exercise which ended abruptly without any tangible reason. It was until recently that Ghanaians were informed that the Authority was seeking for $115 million dollars from Exim China to embark upon a nationwide re-registration exercise. That move received a lot of flaks from the Ghanaian populace many of who described the re-registration exercise as waste state resources, time and money.