800,000 Ghana cards need to be collected still – NIA

According to the National Identification Authority (NIA), the owners of roughly 800,000 Ghana cards have not yet picked them up from NIA’s district and regional offices spread out across the nation.

The NIA claims that because printed cards are not collected, they are having storage problems.

“Our current issue involves cards that have been printed and are just sitting around waiting for applicants to come pick them up.

It amounts to almost 800,000 cards. Our regional and district offices maintain these cards. Since these cards couldn’t be printed while we were out in the field, they were primarily folks who registered during the bulk registration”, he added.

Abdul Ganiyu, Head of Corporate Affairs of the NIA’s , claimed that his office should not be held accountable for some people’s lack of Ghana cards.

The Ghana card is the only thing needed to re-register a SIM card. Many Ghanaians, though, lack it.

This forced the deadline, which passed on Sunday, to be extended by two more months by Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communication and Digitalization.

Any SIM card that is not registered by the end of September, according to Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful, will be useless.

Mr. Ganiyu added that there is no deadline for the NIA’s registration drive.

He continued, “We have been able to establish 292 permanent regional and district offices, and that should enable everybody interested in applying for the Ghana card the option to do so.”

The only agency authorized to issue Ghana cards, the National Identification Authority, reports that it has so far registered 17 million citizens and anticipates adding 2 million more by the end of September.

The government has extended the SIM card re-registration date to September 30, 2022.

During a press conference held today, Sunday, July 31, 2022, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalization, revealed this.

“The program will be extended until September 30th in order to mark the anniversary of its beginning and give us a full year.

According to the Minister, voice and internet services will not be available to any sim that has not been registered by the end of August.

The deadline for everyone to reregister their SIM cards with their Ghana Cards was originally July 31.

Source: Ghanatodayonline.com