National ID exercise ends in CR

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24-07-08

THE national identification registration exercise in the Central Region ended yesterday with a call on the National Identification Authority (NIA) to set up district registration centres to cater for those who were not able to register during the national exercise.
Residents of Kasoa made the call in separate interviews with the Daily Graphic during a tour of some registration centres in the town.
They said although the move by the NIA to take the national registration exercise to the doorstep of people was commendable, there was the need to have district centres, since moving from one geographical area to the other would be an extra cost to people.
"I can't move from Kasoa with my four children to Takoradi to register. The cost would be too much for me to bear, so we need a registration centre in our district for those who missed the national exercise," Ms Rose Atiga, a resident, said.
The NIA had indicated that the national identification registration was neither time-bound nor geographically bound.
A trader, Janet Wiafe, who said she had gone to the registration centre near her house on four occasions without being able to register, suggested that the NIA should declare a day out of the period for registration for schoolchildren so that academic activities were not disrupted.
She said the manner in which both adults and schoolchildren competed to register was not healthy, hence the need to have a day solely for schoolchildren.
That suggestion was supported by the head teacher of the Odupong Kpehe Primary School, Mr G.P.K. Damalie, who said teachers could also assist to get students to register.
Other residents expressed their anger and frustration at the slow pace of the registration exercise, which they said had discouraged others from registering.
They said standing in long queues had put a lot of people off, adding that those who were yet to register were more than those who had registered.
This assertion was also supported by some registration officers.
A registration officer, Mr Charles Obo-Donkoh, who estimated that about 65 per cent of the population had been registered, said as of Tuesday, he had registered 1,927 people.
He showed this reporter some filled registration forms of residents, saying that if the owners failed to pick them up and take their photographs, they (forms) would be regarded as rejected.
Another registration officer, Mr Osei Ampadu, attributed the slow process of the registration in the Kasoa area to the slowness of the mobile registration work (MRW) operators who transferred the data of persons from the registration forms to the computer, adding that most of the operators were too slow as they were not trained typists.
He called for trained typists to be made to transfer the data of persons to quicken the process of registration.
Mr Emmanuel Otoo, a registration official, said the inability of some residents to provide their personal details contributed to the slow registration in the Kasoa area.
For Charles Addison, a registration officer, the exercise was smooth at his centre, as he had registered 1,138 as of Tuesday.