National ID registration starts in November

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has announced that government will commence the National Identification registration exercise in November 2017.

This is a departure from an earlier announcement by the National Identification Authority (NIA), scheduling the exercise to start on September 15, 2017.

Dr. Bawumia explained that the change in date is due to a decision to first complete the National Addressing System, which will be a critical input in gathering of data for the National ID exercise.

“By November God willing, the next bit of digitization will be the National ID Card. That is very critical, and we are hoping to try the addressing thing launched before the National ID, so that when you come to register for the National ID, we will have your address as well so that we will put it there [in the data].

Dr. Bawumia made the assertion during the launch of a training programme for National Service Personnel into the National Communications Authority (NCA), in Accra.

He added that the National Addressing System will start in October while Mobile Interoperability starts in November.

“It is all digitizing in Ghana; we are moving to get these things done. The National ID is very critical for everything that we are going to do going forward. Whether its health, whether its education , taxation; everything will now be dependent on your National ID number, which will be your unique ID which will follow you from birth all the way to death,” he stressed.

Dr. Bawumia disclosed that the move to digitize all of government’s operations have proved successful as initial assessment of the paperless system at the ports increased Ghana’s revenue collection.

“The results are amazing. We just looked at data this morning – first week of collections under the paperless system in September this year compared to last year first week of collections in September 2016, and collections have gone up by 56 percent; 56 percent from around GHc130 million to GHc213 million in one week,” he noted.

He maintained that government is poised to achieve all the targets in digitization activities of state institutions and government agencies for maximum results.

He cited for example that the mobile interoperability will open the financial sector and encouraged the informal sector to be included in the economic data of the country for accurate forecast.