Prepare to be baffled by the genius of those in charge of running this country. After six years and over Ghc 21, 000,000 of working on issuing a national identification card, the whole endeavor has been scrapped to venture on another one.
The National Identification Authority has announced that the old registration exercise for issuing national ID’s has been scrapped, and that the authority is embarking on a fresh registration exercise aimed at issuing all Ghanaians with the national id cards dubbed Ghanacards.
The new exercise is to be held under a public/private partnership (PPP), towards which end a $115 million agreement has been reached with Exxim China to fund the new project, subject to approval from Cabinet and Parliament.
So after wasting the time of countless Ghanaians, most of whom had to queue for hours to get their data registered into the system, and spending approximately Ghc 21, 621, 075 on the six year registration and partial distribution of cards exercise; we are now being told we have to return our cards and then become embroiled in another lengthy exercise.
Anyone who has had to partake in any of these public registration exercises in Accra can tell you how unpleasant an experience it can be, indeed this gives me not very fond memories of my recent experience of trying to register to join the National Service Scheme. And it’s probably not any better in other parts of the country.