The Dormaa West District Registration Office of the National Identification Authority (NIA) has issued challenge forms to 30 applicants after subjecting them through interrogations at different stages of the registration process.
Mr Humphrey Kuupiel, the District Registration Officer of the Authority told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), in an interview, on the progress and challenges regarding the exercise at Nkrankwanta, the district capital in the Bono Region.
Mr Kuupiel said those persons’ actions and conduct bothered on criminality because they came with fake birth certificates to register, while others gave inconsistent and inaccurate information.
He said the challenge forms were given to them to enable them to provide further and better particulars and other personal information to confirm whether they were Ghanaian nationals, but all of them never returned with the forms, he added.
“Some of these applicants, through our questioning, confessed that they were not Ghanaians. There are some residents who own farmlands across the other side of the border and vice versa, making movement very easy for them” Mr. Kuupiel explained.
He said through the assistance of the Police, the Office had been able to identify and arrest eight applicants and guarantors, all suspected to be Ivorian nationals for their criminal conduct and attributed the situation to “some residents who aided these foreign nationals by acting as guarantors to register them”.
Mr. Kuupiel further stated that due to the area’s proximity to the Cote d’IVoire border, the Office worked very hard to reduce the infiltration through the border and commended his staff for their diligence in arresting such criminals.
He said since the commencement of the operation in November last year, they had been doing community sensitisation on radio stations, compelling huge numbers of people to the registration centre to either register or collect their cards.
The Office received more than 2,000 cards to process during the mass registration exercise and a greater percentage of the cards had been given to the applicants, Mr. Kuupiel said.
“The applicants come from far places, including Berekum and Dormaa-Ahenkro to Nkrankwanta to register because of the cosmopolitan nature of those areas and the associated high population, causing pressure on their centres”.
Mr. Kuupiel said the Authority’s major challenge in the district was the lack of suitable office space, because “we are using the reception of the District Chief Executive as our current office”.
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