The National Identification Authority (NIA) has warned registrants for the Ghana Card to desist from attempting to do so twice.

According to the NIA, doing so will be an exercise in futility because the system automatically wipes such entries out.

This was disclosed by the Head of Corporate Affairs at the Authority, Abudu Abdul Ganiyu on the Super Morning Show, Thursday.

"There are so many people out there who keep berating NIA for having registered since the Ghana Card registration exercise started and haven't gotten their card, but when those people come to us and we check our system, we find out that we don't even have them in our system.

"This is simply because they registered somewhere and attempted registering at another place simply because they could not get their cards and that amounts to double registration, which completely wipes the person out of the system," he said.

He made the comments when he appeared on the Show, to respond to concerns from Ghanaians about the Ghana Card registration exercise.

Mr. Abdul Ganiyu clarified that there is no requirement for payment by first-time registrants. “You don’t pay for the Ghana Card to be issued. First-time registration and issuance are free," he said.

He mentioned that the only instances where payments are required are when, “you visit the premium center [which requires you to pay GH₵250], or when you lose your card and you want a replacement or there’s an update you want to make, you pay GH₵30.00.

“Then, the institutionalised and household registration where you should be five or more and each person pays GH₵150. These are the only instances where fees apply,” he said.

He stated that any other charge, is criminal.

He also disclosed that 88% of qualified applicants have registered for the Ghana Card.

According to him, a total of 16,182,684 Ghanaians have enrolled for the Ghana Card since the registration exercise started in 2019.

Giving a breakdown of this figure, he said “15,963,571 cards have been printed so far (as of Wednesday, February 16, 2022), while 12,693,154 cards have been issued to their respective owners.