My Experience At The Premium Service For The Ghana Card Registration Plus A Few Things Worthy of Note.
“ If you don’t get the Ghana Card, you’ll lose your mobile phone number as it’s the only card to use for your SIM re-registeration and not be able to do banking transactions either. The Ghana Card will also replace your TIN number.” Or so the communique went after the rollout of the infamous Ghana Card began.
I had seen the insane queues at most registration centres and the nature of my work wasn’t going to allow me to wake up at dawn to dedicate a whole day for getting one citizen card. And the nearest district office for registration wasn’t within my community which made it more difficult to start the process. So when it was announced on Sunday evening of new Ghana Card registeration centres i was elated because El Wak wasn’t far and it was a Premium Center which meant i could get my card within a shorter time and also the service would be professional and better organised. Or so i imagined.
Monday morning and I arrived at the El Wak stadium by 8:45am , i had to enquire from other people walking inside on where the registeration centre was and like me they were also searching. There was no signage for pointing people towards the centre which is located on the far side of the football field close to the bleachers. Several early registrants milled about and as i walked into the centre it was obvious that the staff weren’t even ready to start the registration process. Biometric equipments, scanners, cables and other equipment were on the floor awaiting to be setup. I was directed to speak to a supervisor on how to start the process. “ Madam, you have to book an appointment online via the NIA website for the Premium Service and then go to the NIA office at Shiashie to pay GHC250 and come back here for the registeration,” he responded to my enquiry.
“ Oh how?? And why wasn’t this communicated to the media before today??” I was irritated and other people who had gathered were showing similar incredulity. What kind of frustration is this? We should spend extra money to drive or take Uber all the way to Shiashie to pay for a premium service? Those of us who were without an appointment then sought to book online using Google Chrome browser. That was another frustration as the website icon for booking a time slot kept saying there was no available time even in April! Eii ! Oh and the date of birth calendar was only allowing me and a few others to keep tapping to our year of birth. No manual entry to just type it in. Imagine having to tap to 1957 or 1985 all the way from 2022! I hope this has been corrected today.
Then an officer came out announced a new web portal for appointment booking and payment for the premium service. It was 9:30am by now. If you are interested in using the Premium service, use Google Chrome to access https://register.nia.gov.gh . You get to choose the date and time for your appointment and also pay using either a VISA card or Mobile Money a feature made possible by CAL Bank. Once you pay, you get a payment code and receipt to use as proof of payment.
As at 10:30am there were no chairs for premium customers to rest their frustrations in whilst waiting for the process to start. Chairs and tables finally got to the centre a little before 11am.
I was second in line when the process started. The start of the registration involves another data capture which was manual! Sigh! That took about 30mins to complete before i moved on to the biometrics scanning. That took awhile to start and when it did, it was completed within 15 minutes. Interestingly, that’s when camera men started showing up. I wish they had shown up at 8am instead to see something.
I finished my biometrics scan at 12:10 and was told to wait for my card to be printed. 2 hours later no card. Nobody was telling us anything on the status of the card. An elderly lady who was first in the queue was as incredulous as i was on the rather poor planning and implementation of this exercise. I was extremely thirsty so i walked out to stretch my legs and find a water vendor. Thankfully i found one at the bleachers . My throat was parched! A whole premium service which didn’t even offer satchet water to agitated registrants. An officer came to apologise for the delay with some explanation on the printers not printing some cards due to network issues. Unbelievable !
Another hour passed by. I couldn’t sit anymore and had to demand from the officers what was going on! Strangely my card was then found amongst some five cards after my hands on hips stance and a deep scowl on my mask clad face. The card was then sent for verification which took another 30 minutes. Verification?? After all the biometrics and document verifications what verification was needed again? Ei Ghana !! Finally it was brought out of the verification and sent to another printing area for a second biometrics capture. A deep hunger had brought on a migraine and i couldn’t wait to get out of there. The lady who was first in the queue was still waiting when i left. Others who had come after us had somehow received their cards and left ages ago.
This wasn’t a Premium service in any way! One guy behind me said he thought the premium centre would have air-conditioning at least! I guffawed because i also had that initial thought in the morning when choosing my outfit for the day. That name Premium should be erased asap! For GHC250 this was terrible, uncomfortable, inefficient and downright frustrating experience!
I sincerely hope that no future government will try and cancel this Ghana Card after the awful stress we have gone through as Ghanaians. Why can’t we plan and organise registration of anything efficiently in this country? From University registrations, Voters ID registration, Sim card registration, even getting onboard the Logos Hope was a nightmare! How can we get this right?
Now i have the SIM card re-registration nightmare ahead of me! Deep sigh!
A few noteworthy tips:
Dress comfortably, avoid heels if you can.
Come along with some snacks and drinks.
Carry only hard copies of all original documents , no photocopies. This includes your driving license or Voters ID.
Know your Digital Address.
Bring a book you haven’t completed reading along.
