Staff of the National Identification Authority (NIA) have suspended the ongoing mass registration exercise in the Eastern Region over coronavirus.
A visit to some centres by Starr News observed staff of the Authority were packing away even the exercise has not ended in the region.
Ghana has recorded six cases of the coronavirus within a week with about 170 contact tracing and testing ongoing.
As a result, Ghana’s President after an emergency stakeholder meeting on Sunday, March 15, announced the suspension of all public gatherings including conferences, funerals, church activities for four weeks.
Also, all Universities, schools etc have been closed from March 16, 2020.
Government also emphasized that travel bans announced earlier are still in force.
Some residents expressed worry that despite the ban, NIA registration centres were heavily congested Monday morning but the exercise was subsequently suspended. Though some staff of the authority confirmed the suspension of the exercise.
The National Identification Authority (NIA) started the mass registration for Ghana card in the Eastern Region on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 and was expected to end Friday, March 27, 2020.
The Eastern region is the last region for the mass registration exercise.
The NIA piloted the registration exercise via institutional and community (Adentan, La Nkwantanang and Ga East municipalities) from 4th June 2018 to 28th April 2019. Mass Registration Exercise started on the 29th April 2019 with Greater Accra being the first region. The registration exercise since then has taken place in fifteen out of the 16 regions.
The NIA from the pilot phase up till the 22nd February 2020, has registered a total of 9,813,242 eligible Ghanaians, printed 8,408,721 cards and issued cards to 6,186,679 qualified Ghanaians.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/Kojo Ansah
