NIA to begin registration of persons aged 6 to 14 in September

The Ghana Card registration period for those aged 6 to 14 will begin in September, according to a statement released by the National Identification Authority (NIA).

According to the authorities, the registration procedure is now ready to be extended to Ghanaians under the age of 15, having successfully registered 18 million citizens over that age.

Prof. Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah, the NIA’s executive secretary, said the program has previously undergone pilot testing in the Eastern and Central regions and is now ready for a national deployment.

“We have started looking at Ghanaians aged between 6 and 14 years because the mass registration and the continuous registration captured Ghanaians 15 years and above.

“We are now turning our attention to those below the age of 16 and between July 20 and July 23, and we piloted the registration of this cohort of the population in the Eastern region and the Central region and based on that, we have learned some lessons and we are retooling our mechanism to begin the registration of this class of people.”

Over 110,000 Ghana Cards have had their registrations revoked because of problems with duplicate registration, according to the National Identification Authority (NIA).

Approximately 150,000 cards are still awaiting production, despite the fact that the authority has successfully distributed over 18 million cards to Ghanaians.

The Executive Secretary of the NIA, Prof. Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah, declared that investigations into the numerous registration cases had begun during his appearance before the Assurance Committee of Parliament.

“The total number of cards not issued to Ghanaians as of the date of compilation of this report which was August 20, 2024, is 559, 457 and cards cleared and ready to be printed stands at 150,896.

“We have a total of 110,936, as the number of Ghanaians who have attempted multiple registrations whose cards have gone into delinquency and is being investigated,” he stated.

The NIA also disclosed that Ghanaians residing overseas are now eligible to use its registration services.

The scheme for foreign registration will be piloted by the authority in Ottawa, Canada, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.

“We chose Canada for a strategic reason. We wanted a place where we would test the robustness, the acuteness of our technical system that we’ve designed with partnership with our technical partners. We wanted a place where the majority of the people who will come before us seeking to register will be persons possessing the two fundamental of these documents, birth certificate or a passport.”

“The banking process, which will require the use of the registration via the internet. The whole registration of Ghanaians overseas is based on the use of the internet. People going online. Applying online, making the payment online, and then presenting themselves physically,” he added.

Source: Ghanatodayonline.com