The official take-off of the registration of eligible citizens in the Ashanti Region for the Ghana Card was fraught with a myriad of challenges leaving both applicants and registration officials stranded and frustrated at most Centres.

Most of the prospective applicants left for home very much disappointed with a few other optimists still waiting with the hope that the difficulties would be rectified to capture them unto the national database.

Ashanti Region is the 11th administrative region to take its turn in the ongoing nationwide registration of citizens by the National Identification Authority, NIA.

A projected figure of 2.8 million citizens aged from 15 years resident in the region are to be captured unto the digital register between 11th December 2019 and 8th January 2020.

The logistics for the registration exercise were test-ran last Saturday and Sunday with limited registration for sections of the public including media practitioners without much difficulties thereby giving the officials high hopes of a smooth take-off of the month-long registration exercise.

However, when the exercise began yesterday morning, the enthusiasm and hopes of many of the applicants were dashed when they met only the officials without the required logistics to carry out the registration processes successfully.

At the Ahinsan Community Centre and the Mount Zion Methodist Registration Centres in the Asokwa Municipality, though the Registration officials were at post at the appointed time of 7am, the prospective applicants could not go through the process for their Ghana Cards.

Most of them who could not endure the long wait had already left the Centres leaving just a few aged ones. Some of them expressed their disappointment to GBC’s Radio Ghana. At the Ahinsan M/A Junior High School where another Registration Centre was to be set up, a teacher confided in our Correspondent that the officials who earlier reported to duty had to reluctantly vacate post after waiting for some time without receiving the required logistics and materials to work with. At the Ouaddara Barracks of the 4BN in the Bantama Sub-Metro, about two Registration Centres and four picture capturing boots had been set up with the process going on smoothly up to the point of the Ghana Card issuance when the applicants were told to return on Friday for their Cards. But they did not appear bothered by the development. Some of them who spoke to GBC expressed satisfaction with the processes so far and said they were ready to return for their Ghana Cards on the scheduled date.

The situation was no different at the T.I. Ahmadiyya Senior High School in the Subin Sub-Metro. Most of the applicants, mostly teaching and non-teaching staff of the school had already gone through the registration process. They could also not access their Cards and told to return for the same at a later date.

Efforts to get officials of the NIA to react to the false start of the registration exercise proved unsuccessful as telephone calls were not answered while registration officials were also under stern instruction not to grant interviews to the media about the registration exercise.