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General Secretary of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says the opposition party is never against Ghanaians being asked to register for their national ID cards or Ghana card.

To him, the NDC has never officially been against the registration exercise.

Speaking on Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' programme, he explained that they are only concerned about the registration processes which had been slow causing several people not to be biometrically captured.

" . . No one has said the Ghana Card is not a good thing, it is a good thing, but everyone has to get it before laws are enacted to make it compulsory for Ghanaians to live with it . . " he said, adding that their only issue is "since all Ghanaians have not registered for their Ghana Card, another form of national identification should be factored into registering for a Voter ID Card, otherwise many people will be disenfranchised."

According to him, the recent pandemonium that characterized registration centres due to the unrealistic deadlines for SIM card registration was a case in point.

Reliable data from the National Identification Authority says only 16,654,072 million Ghanaians out of a national population of about 31 million had registered for the Ghana card as at July 2022. Adding that out of this number, only 13,316,612 million of them had been issued with their Ghana cards.

IPAC Boycott

"IPAC is not law, parliament is law, and we are in parliament so we are talking about parliament not IPAC . . ." he indicated.
 
The NDC General Secretary further indicated that they have their reasons for not attending IPAC meetings and so what ever decision was taken at IPAC should be binding on those parties present at the time.

Ghana Card to be a requirement for voting in 2024 

According to the Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) in charge of Corporate Services, Dr. Bossman Asare, The Ghana Card will be a requirement for voting in the 2024 election.

He added that the Electoral Commission has had a series of meetings with the political parties and civil society organisations, and it has been agreed among the parties that the Ghana Card be used as the sole document for voter registration.

“It was agreed that now that the Ghana card has made a lot of impact in our society – as we speak now, almost 17 million Ghanaians have registered for the Ghana card, so, the Commission, in collaboration with our partners, took the decision that: ‘Now, let’s have the Ghana Card as the main requirement,’" Dr Bossman Asare, said.

He reiterated the need for citizens, especially those between the ages of 15 to 18 to register for their Ghana Card “so that as soon as you turn 18 then you present it to the registration officer then instantly you are going to be registered.”

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