The Head of Operations at the National Identification Authority (NIA), Colonel Peter Kwame Ghansah (Rtd), has disclosed that 16,936,934 Ghanaians have been registered by the Authority as of July 12, including pilot, mass and continuous registration exercises.
He explained that the number of cards printed is 16,743,832 whilst the number of uncollected Ghana cards is 895,140, adding that the number of cards replaced is 159,439.
Colonel Ghansah announced this when officials of the National Identification Authority appeared in the House to brief Members of Parliament (MPs) about the operations and activities of the NIA.
Colonel Ghansah also explained that the number of persons whose records were updated is 34,623 whilst the number of foreigners registered and the number of non-citizens who renewed their cards from January to June 2022 is 12,379 and 15,552 respectively.
He said the total number of foreigners registered from 2013 to date is 156,339 and that from the figures it means that on average 17,371 foreigners are registered annually.
Colonel Ghansah further indicated that between 2018 and 2022 the NIA executed MOUs for delivery of data harmonization and integration services with institutions including the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Bank of Ghana (BOG), Artel-Tigo, MTN, Vodafone and Glow.
He explained that after the execution of the MOU and the data harmonization process, the NIA has transferred data to institutions including the GRA, SSNIT, NHIA and MTN, among others.
He said for the GRA the NIA has transferred a total of 15, 797,860 data, SSNIT-15,412,055, NHIA-15,370,256, Artel-Tigo-1,766,446, MTN-11,524,584, Vodafone-10, 340,802 and Glo-142,215.
Colonel Ghansah also stated that the NIA was engaging the Electoral Commission, Births and Deaths Registry, Ghana Immigration Service, Passport Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration for similar purposes.
He explained that Ghanaians who had registered but had not yet received their Ghana card could still be clarified by the Banks and Telcom companies if verification devices specified by the NIA were available.
Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, in his comments raised concern that the Ghana card which is a public good is increasingly not accessible to millions of Ghanaians.
He called on the NIA to give a regional and district breakdown in terms of the number of people registered as well as the cards issued by the Authority.
“Many Ghanaians are struggling to have access to the Ghana card,” he said.
Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in his comment, reiterated the call for the NIA to provide the regional and district breakdown in terms of the figures to the House.
“I subscribe to the idea that we should have the regional and district breakdown because Ghana is broken down into regions, so that when we have the full complements of the identification cards, it should even help us to know region by region and district by district the ethnic breakdown of the country,” he added.