The 2020 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress has made a passionate appeal to the management of the National Identification Authority, to speed up the process of issuing the Ghana card.

Speaking at the climax of the Dumba festival in Wa, in the Upper West Region, John Dramani Mahama said, there have been complaints about the slow process in several regions and it looks like that experience is playing out again in the Upper West.

“Next year is an election year and the Ghana Card is going to be one of the identification means to show that people are Ghanaians. Therefore it is important that as many Ghanaians who seek to acquire the card get it,” he pointed out.

JoyNews Correspondent, Rafiq Salam reports that the former president further called on the Authority to be up and doing if their challenge is logistic in nature.

“If it is a question of equipment, I think that the National Identification Authority should be up and doing so that as many people in this region can acquire the card,” he appealed.

The NIA came into being in 2003 under the Office of the President.

It has a mandate to issue national ID cards and manage the National Identification System (NIS).

The government passed the NIA Act, 2006 (Act 707) to give it the necessary legal premise on which to operate.

The Authority says it has registered 2,902,526 eligible Ghanaians in the Greater Accra, Volta and Oti regions since the registration started on June 4, 2018.