The National Identification Authority (NIA) has announced that effective October 31, its special service centre at El-wak sports stadium will be closed down.

The Authority opened the registration centre at El-wak months ago to facilitate the registration for the Ghana card and its replacement.

The NIA in a statement said all applicants who have completed the processes for a card update or replacement but are yet to pick their cards should visit the Greater Accra Regional office at Kinbu.

“Applicants requesting update and card replacement services should visit the nearest NIA District or Regional Office,” the Authority said in a statement.

It added that all applicants who have any request regarding the card verification should do so at its Shiashie head office.

Meanwhile, the Authority says it has so far issued 15,826,148 Ghana cards out of the 16,627,325 printed cards from 17,109,627 registrations as of the end of August this year.

Addressing a press conference in Accra recently, the Executive Secretary of the NIA, Professor Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah, said while his outfit admits that there were some challenges with the issuance of the cards, it could not be blamed solely if some people did not have their cards yet.

He said some Ghanaians have failed to take advantage of the various opportunities for them to go for their cards at the decentralised levels.

“We still have some cards issued during the mass registration exercises in 2020. I was in Koforidua about three months ago on a monitoring exercise. I called someone whose card was ready to come for it. That person said it was not time for the collection of cards and that he would come for it when he had need for it.