Due to budgetary restrictions, the company locks NIA cards

National Identification Authority (NIA) has been left to look for funds in order to have blank cards released for printing Ghana Cards as the company in charge has locked them up due to indebtedness.

According to reports, Identity Management Systems Limited (IMS) is owed a considerable amount of money, forcing it to deny NIA access to the blank cards.

But assurance has been given that the matter will be solved and soon the cards will be made available for printing the Ghana Cards.

“Since about August of last year, we have experienced financial constraints in the system and it created a situation where even though we have 3.5 million stock of cards in a bonded warehouse, we are unable to assess the cards because of financial difficulty,” Executive Secretary of the Authority Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah stated on Accra-based Joy FM on Saturday.

He, however, indicated that government has cleared some of the debt and soon some cards will be released for printing.

This comes in the wake of questions raised by the Minority in Parliament about the inability of all eligible Ghanaians to get their cards in time for registration.

The Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) is said to have proposed a new Constitutional Instrument (CI) to have the Ghana Card as the sole document of proof for registration ahead of the 2024 elections.

But Prof Attafuah assured that with the financial difficulties out of the way, the NIA will print all the cards for registered Ghanaians even for those below 18 years.

As of Sunday, February 19, he indicated, only 541,529 cards are yet to be printed. Out of the total 16,737,734 cards printed, 642,403 are yet to come for theirs.