The founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings, has successfully registered for his Ghana card despite an ongoing boycott by the NDC minority in Parliament.
The former president was registered for the card earlier today [Tuesday].
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor was also registered for the card.
The Minority in Parliament boycotted the Ghana card registration process for parliamentarians citing among other reasons that the use of only birth certificates and passports as proof of citizenship could denationalize some Ghanaians.
“We remain opposed to the restriction of identification requirements for registration to Passports and Birth Certificates. Our analysis show that this will prevent about 23 million Ghanaians from obtaining the Ghana Card and deprive them of any benefit thereof,” a statement issued by the caucus leader Haruna Iddrisu said.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NIA, Prof. Ken Attafuah in a Citi News interview said, it had previously engaged former presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Kufuor to register them as part of them as part of the early Ghana card registration process.
He added that the NIA will continue to register staff of other key institutions as part of the early registration process.
“We had stakeholder engagements with President Rawlings and President Kufuor and today we’ve had the privilege of registering the two gallant men. We are in the process of registering Ghanaians and these two are very eminent Ghanaians. We are registering other Ghanaians today. We are at the premises of the audit service, judicial service, immigration, prisons fire service and several other places. We are determined to stay focused and to continue with discharging our statutory mandate.
President Akufo-Addo and other staff at the presidency were registered earlier this month after an earlier unsuccessful attempt.
About the National ID card
The issuance of a National Identification ID card is among the government’s key promises to formalise the country’s economy.
Under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in 2009, the NIA began the process to register and issue the National ID card to all Ghanaians.
About 11 million people in six regions of the country were registered as part of the process between 2009 and 2010.
The cards were, however, ready for collection later in 2011, although a number of them could not be accessed.
But most banks and some state institutions rendered them useless as they rejected them as an unrecognized state ID card.
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By: Minna Dablu/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
