The National Identification Authority (NIA) has opened another premium centre for registering and issuing Ghana Cards in the Greater Accra Region.

The new centre is located at CAL Bank’s Head Office premises on Independence Avenue in Accra.

According to the head of Corporate Affairs for NIA, prospective applicants for the premium service will be required to pay an amount of ¢250 to acquire the Ghana Card.

Abudu Abdul Ganiyu added that interested individuals can equally use the online registration process to schedule their appointments.

Mr Ganiyu explained this would help to reduce the time spent in going through the manual process.

“As part of the process to make it efficient and give value for money, the NIA has introduced scheduled appointments which can be done online. It has been test run for some time, and following its success, we are now rolling it out for the premium services for now.”

Currently, there are three premium registration centres in the Greater Accra Region alone. The two others are located at the NIA Head Office and the temporal centre at the El-Wak Sports Stadium.

Minority fights ¢250 premium charge

The Minority in Parliament has described the charge for premium service as unjust and exorbitant, saying the decision breaches several laws.

Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Communications Committee, Sam George, explained that the amount is against the social justice phenomena of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

“A lady asked a very important question, and as an MP, I didn’t have an answer. She is a Ghanaian and has a birth certificate, and another Ghanaian has a birth certificate.

“Our laws say that public services must not be discriminatory, and you are saying that if she doesn’t have 2.5 million (old cedi), she is not Ghanaian enough like somebody else; that is an injustice that we must fight against.

Because 2.5 million (old cedi) is somebody’s whole monthly salary…for you to ask someone to pay 2.5 million to have just a card,” he said.