NIA denies 115 million dollar loan is for new Ghanacards

The National Identification Authority (NIA) has denied reports that the authority has secured a 115 million dollar loan to undertake a fresh registration exercise. According to them, the loan is to enable the authority to undertake an expansion of some of its facilities at the regional and district levels and also complete its identity management ecosystem. The NIA has come under widespread criticism following reports that the authority is to undertake a new registration exercise with a 115 million dollar loan facility from China’s Exim Bank. The authority had earlier spent over 21 million Ghana cedis on the previous exercise which failed to deliver the cards. Reports of the new loan to complete the production and distribution of new Ghanacards angered Ghanaians. Earlier, Bertha Dzeble, the PRO of the NIA explained that the Authority needed to undertake the upgrade because the previous one delayed data processing saying, the new facility is to allows the Authority to issue the cards instantly. But a technology engineer, Herman Kojo Chinery-Hesse, suggested that the NIA could locally produce the new identity cards at a cost of only 10 million. But in a press statement, the NIA denied that a loan has been approved. The release further stated that the government had pursued the loan from China since 2012 adding that it is not cash that NIA has discretion to apply as it wants.  The NIA also debunked allegations that the old ID cards would be trashed stating that the old system has not been dumped.

Source:Citifmonline.com