Deputy Minister of Information and government spokesperson on finance, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has revealed that an amount of GHC120 million has been released to finance the issuance of the National Identity (ID) cards.

On 15 September 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the new ID card, dubbed the “Ghana Card”. He was issued with the first card on the day of the launch.

The President indicated that the launch of the card “constitutes a practical demonstration of the fulfilment of yet another promise of my party, the New Patriotic Party, made during the 2016 campaign.”

The campaign promise, he recounted, was that “we would modernise and formalise the Ghanaian economy through the establishment of a credible national database, and using the National Identification System (NIS) as the primary identifier, as prescribed by law.”

Since he was issued with the card, no other person has been issued with the same card by the National Identification Authority (NIA).

But speaking on the Ghana Yensom show on Accra 100.5FM on Tuesday, 27 February 2018, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the NIA will start distributing the cards to all Ghanaians following the release of their budget.

He said: “ An amount of GHS126million has been released to the NIA for the project. Now they are in the position to carry out the remaining work to ensure everybody gets the ID card.



“So now the authority won’t have any excuse not to deliver the cards to the people because we have released the money to them.”