NIA applicants stranded after commissioner left over menstrual pains

Scores of Ghana Card applicants are stranded at Suhum New town Presbyterian registration centre in the Eastern Region after a Commissioner responsible for guarantors forms left the center over menstrual pains. The National Identification Authority ended the mass registration exercise in the region Saturday.

A number of applicants had massed up in many registration centers hours to end of the exercise to be registered, an action further necessitated by the Supreme Court ruling excluding the old Voters ID card as a requirement for registration in the compilation of new Voters’ Register which begins Tuesday, June 30, 2020.

The absence of the Commissioner in Charge of the guarantor’s forms at the Suhum New Town Presbyterian Center created confusion at the registration centre. Applicants were turned away and asked to go to a different center to register. “We booked appointment

for 100 persons and even had 40 extra persons. Every operator is to have 30 persons in queue per time. The Commissioner is not around she is a lady and she is experiencing menstrual cramps so she left here to the house quarter to 3:00pm. She has vouched for many

people today, so go to a different centre,” an NIA official at the center explained to the angry applicants. However, after back and forth with registeration officials, the stranded applicants were registered after an official intervened. Meanwhile, some applicants in parts of the Eastern Region could not complete the process.

Also, many of those who registered days ago could not receive their cards. At Koforidua Adweso Pentecost Shakina registration centre, about 30 applicants were still in queue after 5:00pm. Many others who came to collect their cards were asked to return the next day at 11:00am.

There have been reports of extortion by NIA officials in some centres, particularly from Tinkong and Koforidua-Adweso. At Koforidua-Adweso Pentecost registration centre, a correspondent who was at the center reports that he saw a registration official taking GHc20 from a military officer in uniform.

The National Identification Authority resumed its registration in the Eastern Region from 18 – 27 June 2020. Meanwhile, before the registration, the NIA had on Wednesday, June 10 , 2020, started the distribution of Ghana Cards to applicants who were duly registered before it suspended its operation in March 21, 2020 as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The issuance of the cards in 5,635 registration centres across the country, ended Thursday, 18 June 2020. “The exercise will enable approximately 3,934,073 Ghanaians who could not receive their cards during the mass registration exercise to do so,” the NIA said in a statement.