New strategy for national identification exercise

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30-07-08

THE National Identification Authority (NIA) has reviewed its strategy for the national identification registration exercise for the effective coverage of the country.
Under the review, the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions would be divided into three, while the rest of the regions would each be divided into two for the rest of the registration exercise to ensure that everyone is covered.
As part of the review, each registration centre will also have two, instead of one machine to capture data of people who call to be registered to speed up the process of registration.
The Head of Information Department of the NIA, Ms Bertha Dzeble, who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic, said “we realised in the Central Region that many people queued up at registration centres and so we want to reduce that”.
She said the logistics for the next registration exercise, which would begin in the Western Region on July 31, 2008 and end on August 26, 2008, had been dispatched, adding that there were enough registration materials for the exercise.
Ms Dzeble explained that out of the 13 districts in the region, six — Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, Wassa West, Wassa East, Ahanta West, Nzema East and Jomoro — would be covered from July 31 to August 11, 2008, while the other seven districts would be covered from August 15 to 26, 2008.
She said registration officers had been advised not to wait till they ran out of registration forms before calling their supervisors for more, adding that once they start running out of stock they should call the district supervisors for replenishment.
Ms Dzeble said the situation where some centres ran out of forms in the Central Region was the fault of registration officers who failed to call for more forms until all they had had run out.
On the registration exercise in the Central Region, she said the NIA was yet to get the total number of people who registered as “we had to move to the Western Region immediately the Central Region exercise ended”.
Commenting on the registration of foreign nationals, she said foreign nationals were supposed to be registered under the exercise, but not as Ghanaians.
She said if anyone could prove that a foreign national was registering as a Ghanaian, the person should draw the attention of registration officials.
The registration exercise, which began in the Central Region, saw people sleeping overnight at some registration centres, especially at Kasoa, in order to be at the front in queues to register. That was as a result of the slow pace of the exercise.
Registration officers attributed the problem to the inadequacy of the machine used for capturing data of people, as each centre was given one machine. The registration officers said to speed up the process, there was the need to increase the machine to three for each centre.