The National Identification Authority (NIA) plans to print more Ghana cards as the government pays off a GH100 million debt owed to creditors.
The printing of the cards was halted due to the NIA’s financial constraints.
In light of this, over 3.5 million cards were placed in a bonded warehouse.
However, in a speech to Parliament on February 28, 2023, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta revealed that an additional GH20 million had been paid to CalBank following the initial payment of GH80 million.
“I think that the main question was about the GH¢100 million to be transferred to CalBank IMS and as has been confirmed by the [Executive] Director for the NIA, we have indeed transferred the GH¢80 million and today with swift instructions the GH¢20 million has also been executed. That is the assurance we want to give that we will continue to work with the program we have agreed with CalBank,” the Finance Minister stated
The Electoral Commission (EC) is proposing a new constitutional instrument that would make the Ghana card the sole form of identification for voter registration.
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In order to obtain more information, Parliament summoned officials from the Electoral Commission, the NIA, and the Minister of Finance.
Also appearing before Parliament to brief MPs on the activity of the NIA, the Executive Director of the NIA, Professor Kenneth Attafuah, assured that the NIA is prepared to print all outstanding cards per the financial clearance by the Finance Ministry.
He stated that they are now prepared to print additional cards to assist the EC in carrying out the Constitutional Instrument (CI) if it is approved by Parliament.
“The number of cards not yet printed, i.e., persons who have registered, whose records are with NIA but whose cards have not yet been printed, stands at 541,529. This figure represents the financial difficulties we have had lately, beginning approximately in July/August of last year,” he explained.
Prof. Attafuah, on the other hand, has assured Ghanaians that NIA will manage the technology to print more Ghana cards.
“We have the capacity, we have over a thousand functional printers, and we have people who are trained, who are professionals who are sitting at home doing nothing and are anxious to work. We will call those people back to work. With 500 printers, we can print 50,000 cards a day,” he assured.