The National Identification Authority (NIA) has finally bowed to intense pressure to suspend the ongoing Ghana Card registration in the Eastern region.
In a statement to all the field workers dated March 20, 2020 and signed by Francis Palmdeti, Head of Corporate Affairs, the NIA said due to a suit in court “the Mass Registration Exercise currently underway in the Eastern region has been suspended effective Saturday, March 21, 2020.”
Though President Nana Akufo-Addo recently directed that all public gatherings be suspended, including the closure of public schools and churches as a way of containing the spread of the Coronavirus in Ghana, the NIA stubbornly ignored the order and went ahead with the exercise.
The Ghana Medical Association and Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice waded into the matter and called on the NIA to suspend the exercise, but that fell on death ears.
Some two individuals, worried about the intransigence of the NIA, had to drag the Authority to the Human Rights Court for redress.
This, according to the NIA, is responsible for the suspension of the exercise. The case is, however, still in court. The plaintiffs are Kevow Mark-Oliver and Emmanuel Akumatey Okrah.
Below is the NIA’s statement to the field workers:
