<<Print>>

The National Identification Authority (NIA) is in the process of setting up district registration review committees to adjudicate and deal with Ghana card registration complaints.

Every committee instituted would comprise; a circuit court judge, district police commander and representatives from the Ghana Bar Association, traditional committee, Social Welfare Department, Ghana Education Service and religious bodies.

Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI), Mr Francis Palmdeti, the Head of Corporate Affairs of the NIA, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.

He said in the event an applicant’s registration is challenged, the Committee would conduct thorough investigation into the matter and present its final report to the NIA and the one whose registration was challenged.

In situations where the challenged person disagreed with the Committee’s verdict, Mr Palmdeti said the person could appeal to the regional registration review committee and subsequently head to the High Court for final adjudication.

He, therefore, advised individuals who suspect a prospective applicant did not qualify for registration; they shouldn’t fight over it, but rather report the matter to the NIA registration officials to file an official challenge.

Giving insights into reasons why an applicant’s card could be delayed or deferred, Mr Palmdeti provided three reasons, which are double registration, poor network reception of NIA biometric gadgets and an applicant, who registered for a Ghana card in 2008 and the information he or she provided for the current registration is substantially different.

He noted that if any of the aforementioned scenarios were detected, the person’s card could be detained and the NIA would trigger the adjudication process to ascertain the authenticity of the nationality of the challenged person, adding that, the process could take a bit longer to resolve.

He cited, for instance that, in 2008, some people registered as foreigners and overtime they managed to procure Ghanaian documents thereby fraudulently changing their nationality.

He said such people tried to register in the current registration and the system identified it and so their card was not issued immediately.
Additionally, some people tried to use vouching process to change or hide information about themselves, including their actual names, date of birth, among others, therefore the system identified the anomaly because their old records were still in the NIA database, Mr Palmdeti explained.

With regard to the number of persons registered so far since the registration exercise started on June 4, 2018, he said, the NIA had registered 498,021 people in three districts, including Adentan-Madina, La-Nkwantanang and Gas East.

He said the Authority completed a mass registration in Ga East last week, and that, the NIA would now divide the Greater Accra Region into two zones and start a mass registration next month.
He said “Zone One” would be known as “Accra West” comprising 14 districts whilst “Zone Two”, would be “Accra East”, which is made up of 17 districts.

Mr Palmdeti observed that the Authority identified some operational and technical challenges during the recent registration exercises, therefore it had organised refresher courses for its field staff at the University of Professional Studies (UPS), Legon, to correct the anomaly in subsequent registrations.

He entreated Ghanaians, who had not secured their digital addresses, passport or birth certificates to do so because they are critical documents needed to ensure a smooth registration.

He said after every mass registration in every district, a mop up centre is created to enable people who couldn’t pick up their identity cards to do so, while another opportunity is given to people who couldn’t register at all within the stipulated period to register.

Mr Palmdeti said barring any unforeseen circumstance the NIA is expected to complete the mass registration of Ghanaians for Ghana card by December this year.