The Chief Executive (CEO) of the National Identification Authority (NIA) has disclosed that his outfit has established verification platforms that enable banks and other institutions to confirm the identities of individuals.

Briefing the House on Tuesday, February 28, Prof Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah said that this initiative will provide the nation with a single, dependable, and verifiable national database.

Prof Attafuah told the House, “We [NIA] have also established a verification platform, and this verification platform enables banks and other institutions to identify the identities of individuals…”

“As I indicated earlier, 17.3 million Ghanaians have their data and their biometrics stored on the National Identity Register, or NIA database. This provides us as a nation, with a single, trusted, accurate and verifiable database,” the NIA boss indicated.

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Election Commission, the National Service Secretariat, the Passport Office, the DVLA, and the Student Loan Trust Funds were among the organisations he further mentioned as being on board with the project.

“The Bank of Ghana and other financial institutions of 24 universal banks are on-boarded onto our verification system. 146 rural banks and community banks are all on-boarded, 16 savings and loans, 16 fintechs, five finance houses and three microfinance institutions,” he added.

Prof. Attafuah also emphasised that over 120 verification requests had been successfully processed in real time since the verification process started.

Nevertheless, he stated that, the integration of the NIA database with that of the EC was intended to eliminate the costs associated with periodic voter register compilation, card issue, and voter verification, depending on the option the EC selected to pursue.

“But it will also result in the issuance of secure ID smart cards with a 10-year life cycle if this were ever considered. But most importantly, it will eliminate concerns over voter fraud, due to the high integrity of our database.

“There will be no duplication of voter ID and determination of eligibility based on age, based on citizenship, and also based on the person’s identity that you will be who you say you are,” he stated.