Paul Twum-Barimah, the representative for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Dormaa East, has demanded the National Identification Authority (NIA) to publish plans right now for how it would distribute the 640,000 Ghana cards it has created but hasn't yet given to the owners.
He claimed that the government needed to inform the populace of where they might go to pick up the cards since Ghanaians and other nations who had registered for Ghana cards required the cards for business and other operations.
"The NIA is now the pivot around which we are all turning with regard to the registration of our voters, therefore the authority must cease claiming a lack of funds as a barrier to providing printed Ghana cards," he stated.
Mr. Twum-Barimah stated, "You have 640,000 Ghana cards sitting in your office and you are telling us that it is all about money yet you do not know how to distribute those cards," in an interview with the Daily Graphic.
"They should present a sound strategy and explain to us how we will get the 640,000 individuals to obtain the cards," he added.
Mr. Twum-Barimah recalled that when NIA Director Prof. Ken Attafuah visited Parliament, he informed the Speaker that the organisation will register 19 million persons who would be of voting age by the year 2024.
"There must be a problem if the authority claims to have issued 17 million Ghana cards, yet there are over 640,000 printed cards waiting in their office with no one showing up to get them.
He asserted that the authority has a number of options available for carefully allocating the cards to the owners.
Is the NIA telling us—in light of the 640,000 cards that are already in their office—that individuals won't seek out the cards if they publish locations for collection in Graphic and other media outlets?
Are they saying that before making such announcements for them, those media outlets would demand that they pay them a significant sum of money? Money is not the issue, thus we must tell the NIA to be serious,” he added.
The MP said, "We need to inform the NIA people that you do not need money to issue the 640,000 cards that you have," while urging the authority to sit up.
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