The National Identification Authority (NIA) has given indication that not all who are applying for a new Ghana Card or correcting errors on old ones or even seeking a replacement due to loss or damage will be able to get them sorted out by Friday, September 30.
This follows an extension of the initial deadline from July 31 by the Communications and Digitalisation minister, Ursula Owusu.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful, while addressing the press on Sunday, said she had to extend the deadline again “reluctantly”.
“Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a final conditional extension.”
“The programme will be extended to 30th September to end on the anniversary of its commencement. That will give us one full year of SIM registration.”
Reacting to the development, Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, Executive Secretary to the NIA said his outfit was not established to operate by deadlines but rather in perpetuity.
Therefore not every Ghanaian can expect to have their Ghana cards before the deadline.
He however expressed hope that most people can get it and then get their sim cards registered.
“NIA is an organisation set up in perpetuity. What that means is that we are to deliver our mandate pretty much the same like the hospital or a maternity ward that people go there as and when they need to.”
“That is the scheme prescribed by law and that is the scheme we are implementing and we are doing so in perpetuity. There is no timeline and the intendment of the law is that people will go to the NIA at their leisure and pleasure to go and get registered and those people will be those who were not captured during registration.”
Source: PakMediaGh
