The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has appealed to residents of the Kumasi Metropolis to avail themselves of the National Identification Exercise as it will 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 weed out foreigners in possession of Ghanaian passports.
The call was made yesterday, at the Manhyia palace yesterday when the National Identification Authority (NIA), organized a special exercise to register the Asantehene, and some of his chiefs and household.
Ashanti is the sixth region to be covered by the exercise, which began on March 22 and is expected to run untill June 2.
Residents of the Kumasi Metropolis, scheduled in Zone Three of the authority’s programme, will have their turn on tomorrow, April 30.
The Asantehene also appealed to the NIA to use legal means, particularly the 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, saying it would greatly assist the government in its policy designing and implementation and the extension of essential services to the people.
Otumfuo was grateful to the authority for extending the exercise to his household, and called on the residents to co-operate with the NIA for a successful exercise in the metropolis and the region.
He also called on the government to ensure that the authority got all the necessary assistance, particularly financial, to enable it to complete the mass registration exercise.
The Executive Secretary of the Authority, Dr. William 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 everybody would be covered by the exercise and that there would be opportunity for people to do so at a later date at the district and regional offices, people still trouped en masse to the centres.
That, 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 took at most 10 days in each zone and, therefore, appealed to the residents not to rush to the centres in their numbers to create congestion.
As part of the measures to speed up the process and ease the congestion, he said the authority would be adding 100 registration centres and appealed for peace and the people’s full cooperation for an incident-free exercise.
He said the exercise would also help curb the incidence of theft identity in the country and weed out foreigners in possession of Ghanaian passports.
The call was made yesterday, at the Manhyia palace yesterday when the National Identification Authority (NIA), organized a special exercise to register the Asantehene, and some of his chiefs and household.
Ashanti is the sixth region to be covered by the exercise, which began on March 22 and is expected to run untill June 2.
Residents of the Kumasi Metropolis, scheduled in Zone Three of the authority’s programme, will have their turn on tomorrow, April 30.
The Asantehene also appealed to the NIA to use legal means, particularly the 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, saying it would greatly assist the government in its policy designing and implementation and the extension of essential services to the people.
Otumfuo was grateful to the authority for extending the exercise to his household, and called on the residents to co-operate with the NIA for a successful exercise in the metropolis and the region.
He also called on the government to ensure that the authority got all the necessary assistance, particularly financial, to enable it to complete the mass registration exercise.
The Executive Secretary of the Authority, Dr. William 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 everybody would be covered by the exercise and that there would be opportunity for people to do so at a later date at the district and regional offices, people still trouped en masse to the centres.
That, 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 took at most 10 days in each zone and, therefore, appealed to the residents not to rush to the centres in their numbers to create congestion.
As part of the measures to speed up the process and ease the congestion, he said the authority would be adding 100 registration centres and appealed for peace and the people’s full cooperation for an incident-free exercise.
