President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has accused the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of deliberately making up stories about the national identification cards.
According to President Akufo-Addo, some minority Members of Parliament, who have boycotted the National Identification Authority’s exercise of issuing new national ID cards popularly known as Ghana Card are attempting to stall the progress of his government.
President Akufo-Addo made this comments at the 14th commencement ceremony and presentation of the Presidential Charter at Ashesi University College where he was the Guest of Honour.
Quoting from the parliamentary hanzard, President Akufo-Addo said it is unfortunate that after very careful scrutiny and debate by members of parliament on which IDs should be accepted and which should be rejected, “the country seems to be embroiled once again in another of those full scale manufactured stories deliberately engineered to slow down progress in everything we try to do.”
“There is a point of view being argued vociferously that the possession of a Voter’s ID Card should qualify one to be issued a National ID card even though that view was never canvassed during the parliamentary consideration of this matter,” the President said.
The President stated that he has no personal interest nor intention to prevent genuine citizens from being issued with identity cards.
However, due to what is trite knowledge in Ghana that some non-Ghanaians possess Voter’s ID cards and National Health Insurance cards which also led to the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Abu Ramadan versus Attorney General, there is no better and credible basic documentary requirements for establishing nationality or citizenship than a birth certificate or a passport.
The President called on all Ghanaian for their unparalleled support for the exercise in order for it to achieve its objective of issuing every Ghanaian with an Identity card.
“There are four pages of information that the NIA officials require from us, to help them determine if we qualify for a card. There is the legal definition of who is a Ghanaian and I pray we abandon giving politics a bad name and support this exercise to proceed rapidly to a successful end,” the President stated.
By: Joseph Nii Ankrah
