NIA mass registration in Upper East begins on August 15

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga The National Identification Authority (NIA) has called on residents of the Upper East Region who for one reason or the other do not get themselves registered during the mass registration period not to panic and get overly worried since they have an opportunity to have their data captured when the authority opens up its Regional and District offices later on to cater for continuous registration. “Anytime we do the mass registration exercise in any region, we receive so many calls from Ministers, Members of Parliament, and District Chief Executives among others for an extension of the period of registration. We want the public to understand that the mass registration programme is just to collect initial personal and biometric data for the establishment of a national register,” Ms Bertha Dzeble, Head of Public Affairs at the NIA said, adding that the NIA has a program to continue registration after the stipulated registration days elapses in each region. Speaking at a media briefing in Bolgatanga, ahead of a mass registration exercise in the Upper East Region, Ms Dzeble said officials of the NIA were working hard to get financial approval to open regional and district offices as well as personnel to handle continuous registration of all qualified persons and there was no need to people to get overly worried to the extent of migrating to other districts to register. The exercise, which is expected to last from August 15, 2013 to September 11, 2013 covers all persons who are six years and above. The Upper East Region has been divided into two phases. Phase one of the exercise, which is scheduled to take place from the August 15 to 24 would cover the Bolgatanga, Bongo, Builsa North and South as well as the Kasenna-Nankana East and West Districts. Phase two of the exercise which would be from September 2 to September 11 would cover the Bawku East, Bawku West, Garu-Tempane and Nabdam areas. Ms. Bertha Dzeble who emphasized that registration was mandatory and not by choice, pointed out that it was an offence for anyone to try to register twice; adding that, the system could only capture a person’s information only once and that anyone who tried registering twice would be identified and punished according to the law. She said so far over 91,000 double registrations had been identified and measures would be put in place to trace such people. She added that a person found guilty of double registration would be charged 2,500 penalty units (1 penalty unit = GH c 12.00) or put in jail for five years. She called on all applicants to provide personal information such as name, date of birth, place of birth, hometown, district, nationality, educational background, occupation, postal address, house number, street name, parents' information and spouse information. The Head of Public Affairs at the NIA appealed to applicants to bring along any form of verification documentation such as baptismal card or certificate, birth certificate, birth weighing card, voter's ID card, passport, immigration permit, SSNIT card, dual citizenship certificate, naturalization certificate among others.. She said persons who do not possess any of these documents should bring relatives to identify them under oath. She emphasized that the registration is free and any person who demands or offers money for registration should be reported to the NIA officers or state security agents. Ms. Dzeble said the difficulty associated with the exercise was how to determine people living along border areas as Ghanaians or non Ghanaians, adding that, in such areas, chiefs, opinion leaders and community members would be contacted to assist in identifying such people. She said the exercise was not for voting purposes but rather a mechanism aimed at providing a secure and undoubted way of identifying both Ghanaians and foreign nationals living in the country. She therefore appealed to the public not to prevent people from registering. Alhaji Salifu Abdulai, a member of the NIA Operations Team, stressed that the National Identification System different from other registration exercises carried out in the past because it is suppose to build a national data base from which national planning will take off. He said this is so important because “the situation we seem to have now is that of fragmented planning. We don’t have one source where one can obtain concrete national planning information for all government and private institution”. -End- Fact File: • The Upper East Region is the last region in Ghana to be covered under the mass registration exercise • The National Identification System is designed to securely and undoubtedly verify and identify all Ghanaians citizens anywhere and all legally and permanently resident foreign national at all times. • The system is also to provide a common platform to integrate and enhance public and private sector business activities and facilitate the sharing of data for national development purposes.