Peace FM news editor, Mr. Fredrick Kesseh, popularly known as Nana Yaw Kesseh, has slammed officials of the National Identification Authority (NIA), following the delay in issuing registrants with their Ghana Cards.

His outburst comes after the Authority failed to meet its target date of distributing printed Ghana Cards to applicants.

The NIA had announced that from Monday, June 8, 2020, it would distribute over 3 million printed Ghana cards to applicants across all 16 regions of Ghana.

A statement issued by the NIA said the cards are being made available in time to enable Ghanaians use them in the upcoming voter’s registration exercise.

“The National Identification Authority (NIA) will issue 3,875,441 printed cards to Ghana Card applicants in 5,635 registration centres in all 16 Regions of Ghana concurrently from Monday 8th to Tuesday 16th June 2020.

“This nationwide card issuance blitz will enable 11,062,850 Ghanaians to possess Ghana Cards in good time to be used for vouching for their relatives or other Ghanaians who wish to register during the nationwide Mop-Up registration exercise commencing on 18th June 2020 and ending in mid-September 2020. It will also enable persons in possession of the Ghana Card to use it for other mandatory purposes stated in the National Identity Register Regulation, 2012 (LI 2111), including registering as a voter and vouching for others as Ghanaians”, the statement read.

However, the Authority announced Monday morning that the commencement of the card issuance exercise has been postponed.

A statement signed by NIA's Head of Corporate Affairs, ACI. Francis Palmdeti said: "The National Identification Authority (NIA) announces for the information of the general public that its Ghana Card Issuance Exercise scheduled to begin today Monday, 8th June, 2020 in all 16 regions concurrently has been scheduled to Wednesday 10th June to enable the NIA complete the distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to registration centres."

Commenting on the development, however, Nana Yaw Kesseh criticised that, the NIA officials are not having the necessary skills to do the needful.

According to him, the Authority could have waited to finish the distribution of the PPE bofore primarily announcing a date for the card issuance exercise.

"Now it's everywhere that they're distributing cards today. The officials are playing with job. Where were the PPEs when they were writing the statement? Couldn't they have waited for the PPEs to reach the centres before coming out to make that announcement?", he rhetorically quizzed.

He wondered why the NIA is still not done with the Ghana Card registration exercise since it started some 13 years ago.

"Since 2007, you are still on this Ghana Card brouhaha, forgetting that you are a state institution that is financed by the state for this assignment. How long can we continue using driver's license, health insurance, SSNIT, passport etc.? We've all come to agree that the Ghana Card is the one trusted system which can integrate our many cards, but you've slowed up things since Kufour's regime", he spoke during the Newspaper Review segment on the Kokrokoo morning show, hosted by Kwame Sefa Kayi.