Slow, Painful Registration Exercise

The scene at the registration centres brought agonising memories of what Ghanaians go through during elections, the latest being the 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections.

At the polling centres, meandering queues are formed by eager Ghanaians determined to cast their ballots to elect their parliamentary representatives and the person they believe is most qualified to be the President of this country.

Many wake up at dawn and stay on in the scorching sun until the final act is done. It is an experience many wish they would not go through again.

It is one thing to wish for something and another to get it. The play back came when the National Identification Authority (NIA) announced that the national registration exercise which had travelled tortuously through the Central, Eastern, Western and Volta regions was to pitch camp in the Greater Accra Region.

Greater Accra, being heavily populated, was to be segmented and treated in phases. Residents of Ga East, Ga West, Ashaiman and Tema were, therefore, asked to get themselves ready for the exercise to begin on Wednesday, November 18, 2009.

The D-day came and Ghanaians, with the usual enthusiasm they exhibit towards such national assignments, flocked to the registration centres in their neighbourhoods for what they thought was going to be a quick exercise in the national interest.

But that proved to be a serious error of judgement. You either ignore the exercise or go through it to its agonising end, at the expense of your work or your regular schedule.

Many people complained that they had to wake up very early, sometimes as early as 3 a.m., to join queues, yet by the end of the day they had not been registered. Children had to abandon classes for days just to get themselves registered.

One expected that having gone through the exercise in four regions previously and gathered some field experience, the NIA would put things in order to make the exercise easy and accommodating for all. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

It brought to Greater Accra all the problems its workers had accumulated in the four regions and the confusion had to be seen to be appreciated.

First, there was the misinformation that residents should go to the polling centres where they voted in the last elections to get registered. That meant that even if there was a registration centre nearer to you, you still had to go to your last polling centre.

Second, when you get to the centre, there are a few clerks taking down particulars of applicants. When they finish their work, there is only one camera connected to a computer where the information on the application form is to be captured and a photograph taken.

The exercise was painfully slow and there was pressure on everybody, including the registration assistants. Occasionally, there were mistakes, either at the point of filling the forms or with the computer-cum photographer.

Desperate people in the queue sometimes got agitated when they suspected that someone was trying to short-change them by jumping the queue.

Naturally, an otherwise organised group got disorganised and everything became basaa or nyamaa, as we may put it in local parlance.

It became obvious by the second day of the 10-day exercise that the NIA settled on the registration centres without considering the population density of those centres.

If those in authority knew but did not provide adequate logistics, then it would not be wrong to conclude that the NIA did not care for the success or otherwise of the exercise.

Right from the onset, the registration exercise was dogged by many problems. There was the proverbial problem of inadequate funds to procure the necessary logistics.

For a very long time there were labour disputes between the NIA and its field officers over how much should be the daily/monthly allowance and who deserved to receive what. That brought the exercise to near collapse at certain stages.

While it was battling with its own internal problems, the NIA ran into difficulty when, at one stage, it had to conduct its business alongside the Electoral Commission, which was also preparing its register for Election 2008.

In an environment of high levels of illiteracy and ignorance, the confusion created could well be imagined.

After all these things, Ghanaians expected that the NIA would prepare adequately for the Greater Accra exercise, but if what happened in the first phase is a measure, then the NIA is still far away from having effective control over the exercise.

We share in the NIA’s lamentations over lack of adequate funds to procure the necessary logistics and pay its field staff decent allowances to keep them motivated to perform.

That brings up the question: Why are the authorities reluctant to release funds when it comes to very important national exercises such as the national identification registration whose benefits are well-known to those who brought the idea?

The benefits are too numerous to mention, but a few will suffice here. The exercise, among many other things, will help the government to have a fair idea of our national population, its distribution and the various age and professional groups for purposes of national planning.

A national ID card will also help in the electoral process by serving as a back-up to the electoral register and voters’ ID cards.

Apart from establishing who a citizen and a non-citizen are, the national ID card will facilitate easy transaction in the banks and official circles, such as admission to educational institutions or treatment at medical facilities, especially where nationality, location and other vital information are required.

This is an exercise that should not be handled haphazardly under any circumstances. That is why we think so far the NIA has not received the requisite support from government or failed to do its work with due diligence, or both.

The exercise is not over and we think each new day should make us discharge our duties better, instead of repeating past mistakes.

There are many school leavers in town who could be recruited and deployed on the field to speed up the exercise and make it less cumbersome. There is also the need for additional equipment.

It should be possible for workers of certain organisations to be registered at their workplaces, just as it should be possible for students, at least those in the tertiary institutions, to registered on their campuses.

The refrain of ‘no money’ should not be used as an excuse. The exercise is too important for the nation for anybody to hide behind this facade of ‘no funds’ to undermine its success.

Ghanaians have shown enough enthusiasm and responded with great interest to the call to register. Let them not be blamed if the exercise fails to attain its full objectives. Many of us may not go beyond the NIA to look for the source of any failure.