Ghana’s Parliament has summoned officials of the National Identification Authority (NIA) to brief the legislature on the delay in issuance of the Ghana Card as well as controversies surrounding its cost of the project.

The NIA on Monday, 28 May 2018, suspended the roll-out of its limited registration exercise intended to have started that day over what its Executive Director Prof Ken Attafuah described as a “pure technical glitch”.

The Ghana Cards will cost a total of $1.2 billion. The government of Ghana is contributing $531 million of that amount. The remaining $678 million is coming from Identity Management System (IMS), which is partnering the NIA under a public/private partnership (PPP) agreement.

Speaking on the floor of parliament Friday June 8, the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu said: “We expect that each institution or organisation will be accompanied by a supervising minister.

“So for instance National Identification Authority will be accompanied by a delegated Minister appointed by the president to oversee what we are doing because we want to raise critical questions for them to respond.

“And why the process, notwithstanding the announcement by the president and the vice president have since not taken off effectively. We also expect the common fund, GETFund and probably the National Insurance Commission.”