NIA To Open 5000 Centres

AS PART of the exercise to collect accurate data on individuals the National Identification Authority (NIA) will open 5,000 centres throughout the country which would be backed by about 40 technical staff.

This came to light when Professor Ernest Dumor, the Executive Secretary of NIA addressed the opening ceremony of a cumulative 16-day training workshop for about two thousand Mobile Registration Workstation (MRW) Operators.

It was held at the Accra Teacher Training College (ATRACO) at Madina, a suburb of Accra.

Prof. Dumor stated that by law MRW Operators were not allowed to enter any information into the database without authorization.

According to him, the MRW Operators have a responsibility to carry out painstaking work to ensure that the best output is reached.

To be able to establish a national register for Ghana and issue ID cards to the populace, the NIA has to collect initial data through a mass registration exercise across the country.

This requires training people with good Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills to operate the MRWs which would be used to capture the biometric information of application during the registration exercise.

Prof. Dumor noted that about 5,000 registrations centres would be opened throughout the country with about 40 technical support services to those centres to ensure the efficient operation of the data collecting machines.

He reminded the trainees to consider their assignment as a call to national duty and that if they did it well more avenues would be opened to them.

Prof. Dumor urged the trainees to pay more attention and learn to operate the equipment, which he described as very expensive.

He said the NIA had adopted the slogan “Future Solutions Now!”
The system is expected to address issues of national concern and would facilitate inter-connectivity between the national data centre, regional sites, some ministries, departments, agencies, national security agencies and private sector organisations.

It would also facilitate economic development by providing easy access to information for crime prevention, health, welfare services, disaster management and the delivery of other public services. Other areas to benefit are banking services, creation of credible voters' register, social security, acquisition of passports and drivers' licenses.

By Wisdom Peter Awuku