NIA REGISTER OTUMFUO OSEI TUTU II

From: Kwadwo B. Donkor, Kumasi.

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has appealed to residents of Kumasi Metropolis to avail themselves of the national identification exercise as it would help government to effectively plan for the country’s development.

He said the exercise would also help curb the incidence of theft identity in the country and also weed out foreigners in possession of Ghanaian passports.

Otumfuo made the call yesterday when avail himself of the ongoing nationwide National Identification System mass registration exercise at the Manhyia palace. The National Identification Authority (NIA), yesterday, organized a special exercise to register the Asantehene, some of his chiefs and his household.

Ashanti is the sixth region to be covered by the exercise. It begun on March 22 and is expected to run till June 2, 2010. Residents of the Kumasi Metropolis, scheduled in Zone Three of the authority’s programme, will have their turn this Friday, April 30.

The Asantehene also appealed to the National Identification Authority (NIA) to use legal means, particularly the 1992 Constitution which has clearly defined who a Ghanaian is to establish the nationality of the people it would be registering.

He stressed the importance of the exercise which he said would greatly assist the government in its policy designing and implementation and the extension of essential services to the people.

He was grateful to the authority for extending the exercise to his household and called on the residents to cooperate with the NIA for a successful exercise in the metropolis and the region.

The Asantehene also called on the government to ensure that the authority got all the necessary assistance, particularly the financial assistance to enable it to complete the mass registration exercise.

The Executive Secretary of the authority, Dr. Williams Ahadzie, said one of the main challenges facing the exercise was the congestion at the registration centres.

He said in spite of the education that not every body would be covered by the exercise that there would be opportunity for people to do so at a later date from the district and regional offices, people still trouped en masse to the centres.

This, he said usually resulted in long queues and in some instances, necessitated the extension of the period in some districts.

Dr. Ahadzie said the exercise at most spent 10 in each zone and therefore appealed to the residents not to rush to the centres in their numbers to create congestion.

And as part of the measures to speed up the process and ease the congestion, he said the authority would be adding 100 extra registration centres. He appealed for peace and their full cooperation for an incident free exercise.