The National Identification Authority (NIA) has said it has registered and issued some 15 million Ghana Cards to Ghanaians over 15 years old in the first phase of its mandate.

However, an issuance deficit of over 200,000 cards is yet to be met.

Speaking on Class91.3FM morning show on Tuesday, 27 April 2021, Acting Head of Corporate Affairs of the NIA, Adudu Abdul Ganiyu revealed "we still have some 200,000 cards that are currently in backlog, most of that have also been printed.

The problem has to do with issuance and that is because these were registrations that took place during the mass registration and also during the mop-up registration, unfortunately, the cards couldn't be issued while we were on the field".

Mr Ganiyu attributed the delay in issuing the rest of the cards to COVID-19.

He told show host Kofi Oppong Asamoah that: "It was when we got back to headquarters that we now have been able to print all those cards but the difficulty has been reaching out to the people and getting all those cards issued to them.   

“We could easily say people should come to the headquarters for instance and we will be able to issue the cards to them but of course, over the last one year you know what we have had to battle with as a nation in terms of COVID so we have had to ensure social distancing".

Mr Ganiyu, however, assured the general public that issuance of the cards will resume soon.

"What we have communicated is that from June this year, hopefully, we should be able to open our district and regional offices across the country and we intend to bag these cards, take them to the appropriate places where the registration took place, and we will be able to issue them".

The Ghana card is proof of identity, citizenship and residence of the holder.

Its effective roll out will satisfy the government's policy on the use of a unique identifier for all transactions where the identification of an individual is required.