The National Identification Authority (NIA) is expected to distribute identification cards on a limited scale to various institutions in the country, as a lack of adequate funding has prevented it from carrying out a wide scale distribution. This was made known by the Executive Secretary of the Authority, Dr. William Ahadzie on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Friday. “We haven’t gotten the full resources that we [need] so we are trying to make do with what we have for now,” he said, explaining that his outfit was working on some initiatives to obtain funding in order to start issuing the cards nationwide. He said for now, about a hundred and twenty institutions across the capital whose workers were registered, will be issued with the cards. Dr. Ahadzie however indicated that these institutions will fund aspects of the operation, as the resources available are insufficient to complete the exercise without their support. The distribution process will follow a similar pattern as that used in the registration process. It will therefore begin in Accra and then move to the Ashanti, Central, Western, Eastern, Volta, Brong Ahafo Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Asked how much the authority will spend on the exercise, Dr Ahadzie said “typically, operational costs for a region comes around GHS 2 million, particularly for Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions. The other ones are averaged around GHS 1.5 million because we deploy at any given time, about 6,000 people into the field". He indicated that the authority will use a decentralisation process to carry out the continuous registration across the country, until there is enough funding for mass registration to begin. People are expected to present their collection slip given to them during the registration, and a thumb print for authentification before the cards will be given out. Nonetheless, those who have misplaced the slips must authenticate their information with the thumb print. “The reason why we do that is, [because] we want to account for every single card that we give out. That is a very important card with your information on it, so we don’t want it to get into anybody else's hands; that is why we want you to validate it yourself,” he stated. He said the cards are only being issued out to people above 15 years of age, as the system does not allow for people younger than 15 to have the cards. Story by Derick Romeo Adogla/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana