LaDMA To Issue Over 4000 Nat’l IDs To Residents

...As NIA faces Problem with its Biometric Machines 

Story: W.K. Adusu

National Identification Authority in collaboration with the La Dade Kotopon Municipal Assembly (LaDMA), has so far issued some one thousand eight hundred (1,800) National Identification Cards out of four thousand (4,000) ID Cards, to the area’s applicants within 4 weeks amidst challenges.

It emerged during the exercise that there were some institutions in the Municipality who are not prepared to assist the Municipal Assembly to serve the indigene or help to mitigate its minor problems facing the people.  

The ongoing exercise which is taking place at the premises of the Presbyterian church in the heart of the La township; due to certain teething problems has left applicants queue in the scotching sun for hours every day in attempts to receive; but many are disappointed after going through the long queuing process but failing to find their cards.

These disappointed persons are then referred to the National Identification Headquarters at Shiashie, a suburb of Accra for the collection.  

The Republic gathered that the applicants who were normally provided with canopies through the magnanimity of the Presby church, as they (applicants) go through the card distributing process, were this time denied that service, because the Church was demanding payment of Gh¢10.00 for each canopy on daily basis, which the service providers couldn’t afford.

The source added that, the church claims the canopies belong to the youth group of the church, and it was the group that demanding Gh¢30.00 for three canopies.    

This paper gathered that an elderly woman of her sixties fainted earlier while queuing in the scotching sun for hours;  collapsed and sustained bruises on her body, at the premises of Presbyterian Church; and was rushed to a near-by clinic.

In a telephone interview, the MCE, Madam Rita Odoley Sowah, told this Reporter, the assembly, has been renting canopies from the same church whose premises the exercise was going on.

The MCE, seems not understand why the church should allow the people of La queue in the sun for hours to go through process of receiving their National Identification Cards.

She was of the view that the church providing canopies freely for the exercise could be part of its social responsibility; but the Assembly pays for them (canopies).

Hon Member of Parliament for the area, Nii Amasah Namoale, said the impasse has been resolved with the church and its youth group, because the church insisted taken money. This was agreed that at the end of the exercise, the bill for the use of the canopies would be sent to the MP, to pay.

On this score, the use of the canopies started again yesterday, Monday, October 7, 2013. This brought a kind of relief to the La Municipal Chief Executive.

The Republic further noted that in spite of the aforementioned problem, the NIA officials are also faced with challenges of the biometric machines’ unable to identify the fingerprints of some applicants.

And with the support of the NADMO staff, the NIA serves over six hundred people daily, with just one computer.

Some queuing applicants told The Republic that, they were yeaning to have their national identification cards; but the exercise was not moving they way they expected it.

Others also were disappointed that after a long queue the biometric machine could not pick their fingers, although their information and photographs were on the machine, whilst others were asked to go to Shiashie for their cards.