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The National Identification Authority (NIA) has temporarily placed on hold its intended fresh �expanded registration project� of all Ghanaians pending further consultations with various concerned groups. The change in plan was occasioned by concerns raised by various groups and bodies following the announcement of the new registration project by the authority. Speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview, the Public Affairs Director of the NIA, Ms Bertha Dzeble, said the essence of the stakeholder engagement was to engender harmonisation of data. She explained that a number of bodies whose functions drew from information in the national database had to make some inputs to attain a synergy in order to harmonise the national data. �It is not a matter of just handing out ID cards out now,� she said. Scaling back? The Governing Board of the NIA revealed plans last September to undertake a fresh registration of all Ghanaians under an expanded registration project. The decision by the governing board came six years after the authority had begun a mass registration exercise, completing it in seven regions and parts of the three northern regions, and card distribution exercises in parts of the Greater Accra Region. Ghana has already spent about GH�21,621,075 on the mass registration and the card distribution exercises. The NIA was supposed to begin a test run by November 1, 2014 on the �expanded registration project� that would have involved the retrieval of a little over one million Ghanacards already issued and the instant issuance of a smart identification card. However, experts in the field and other groups raised concerns over the new move, including a waste of national resources, time and money. They also raised issues about security, the integrity of a national database and register of Ghanaians and the final cost to the taxpayer if a private partner was to be resorted to for the re-registration of Ghanaians. Building on However, information from the NIA had said the registration exercise would build on what had been done so far. It said it would port the data collected into a new system and the applicants would merely update their information to serve the data needs of other governmental user agencies. It said additional fingerprints would be taken of applicants to meet the international standard of 10 fingerprints. Other features of the new exercise would be the issuance of identification cards to applicants right after registering, with the NIA saying that would be cheaper and cost-effective. Experts that the Daily Graphic spoke to said although the NIA was touting the cost-effectiveness of the new effort, there would by all means be a cost to the taxpayer. The cost of the current exercise was not made known by the NIA. However, the experts wondered how much it would cost the country to port the data to the new system. They were of the view that PPPs, by their nature, were partnerships between public agencies and private concerns to execute a venture that was initially financed by the private partners, who would later recoup their profits. They said that ought not to be the way to go for a national register and database of Ghanaians.