President of Ghana, His Exellency Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo has indicated that neither he nor his Government has any interest in preventing Genuine Citizens from being issued with Identity cards.
Currently the National Identification Authority (NIA) is undergoing an exercise to issue the Ghana Card to citizens of the country. The exercise requires anybody that is a Ghanaian and wishes to obtain his card to present a birth certificate or a passport to confirm their citizenship in order to be issued the card. The directive from the NIA has attracted backlash and from many people particularly the Minority in Parliament who have argues that it is a deliberate attempt by the current Government to deny people the opportunity to own the Ghana Cards.
The Minority has in the past weeks explained that lots of people in the country especially those in the remote areas do not possess birth certificates and passports. Therefore using the two as a means of verification to determine whether a person is Ghanaian is flawed.
His Exellency over the weekend when giving a speech at Ashesi University stated clearly that an appropriate acceptable mechanism has been provided in the law to verify the claims of those who have neither the birth certificates nor the passport. The first Gentleman of the land however insist that it should not be in anyone’s interest that the identity of the Ghanaian is bastardized.
Even with the above declaration, President Nana Addo reiterated that he does not think that there are more credible basic document requirement for establishing Nationality or citizenship than a birth certificate or a Passport.
He therefore does not understand the stance some high ranking leaders of the opposition and some members of the Minority in Parliament have taken, when all the evidence points to their enthusiastic support of the National Identity register amendment bill when it came before them in the house.
President further advised that the lust for power should not carve ones sense of judgment and he prays that we abandon giving Politics a bad name and support this exercise to proceed rapidly to a successful end.
“I am confident that the good sense of the confident Ghanaian people and the vigilance of the law enforcement agencies will be sufficient to defeat any ill-conceived, destructive adventure for achieving narrow parochial partisan end”, his Exellency said.
Source:MordernGhana
