President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has charged stakeholders in the mass registration exercise of Ghanaians under the National Identification Authority (NIA) to abide by the deadline given.

The mass registration began on April 29, 2019 and so far – as of Wednesday, January 8, 2019 – 6.5 million Ghanaians have been registered.

The exercise is currently ongoing in the Ashanti Region, having been carried out in the Greater Accra, Volta, Northern, North-East, Savannah, Oti, Upper East, Upper West, Ahafo, Bono and Bono East regions.

On Friday, January 10, President Akufo-Addo paid a courtesy call on Intelligent Card Production System (ICPS), the firm contracted to produce the national identity cards – known as Ghana Cards.

The president was of full praise for the firm, which is a company with Ghanaian majority ownership.

So far, 3.7 million cards have been issued under the exercise.

President Akufo-Addo reminded stakeholders to ensure that data collected during the exercise remain confidential and made only available to institutions mandated by law to access them.

“Let me remind ICPS and all stakeholders in the national identification exercise to continue to ensure the integrity, security and confidentiality of identity data collected,” he said.

“It is essential that the data collected be made available only to persons or institutions authorized by law to access the data and use only for the purposes for which the data was collected.

“Additionally, the mass deadline for the completion of the exercise has to be respected,” he stated.

Chief Executive Officer of Margins Group, which owns ICPS, Moses Baiden, was full of praise for the president’s gesture, saying the success of his firm is testament to the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda of the government.

“Mr President, this factory demonstrates that Ghana can really go beyond aid.”