Interview: Ghana set to register, issue ID cards to foreign nationals

Ghana's National Identification Authority (NIA) says it will soon roll out a program to register all foreign residents and issue them with noncitizen identity cards.

The acting Executive Secretary for the NIA, Josiah A. M. Cobbah, told Xinhua in an interview at the weekend the exercise would help the government to protect the rights of foreign nationals as required by international law.

"We are rolling up a program and, very soon, we are going to enforce the registration of all eligible foreigners in this country as required by law," he said.

Cobbah said that the exercise would begin with foreigners in the various educational institutions as well as those in the banking and mining sectors.

Ghana has already begun the registration of all foreign nationals under the Foreigners Identification Management System (FIMS) project.

It is estimated that there are about 1 million foreigners in the West African country and the NIA, upon commencement of the exercise, has registered close to 70,000 foreign residents.

Regulation 7 of the National Identity Register Regulations 2012, (L.I. 2111) mentions the uses of the noncitizen Ghana identity card for various purposes.

These include the application for driver's license, opening of personal bank accounts, purchase of insurance policies, payment of taxes, and consumer credit transactions, among others.

The NIA was established in 2006 to register all Ghanaians and foreign nationals permanently resident in the West African country and issue them with national identity cards.

Under Ghana's laws, foreign nationals eligible for registration include all those permanently resident in the country, those with resident permits, and all foreign nationals who stay in the country for a cumulative period of at least 90 days in a given year.

Foreign nationals employed by diplomatic and international bodies and spouses or dependents of qualified foreigners are exempted from the registration. Endi