The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for South Dayi Constituency, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor, has taken a dig at the prominence put on the National Identification Authority (NIA) cards, popularly known as Ghana Cards, by the current administration and its assigns.
“This superficial importance that they place on this Ghana Card today has to be exposed,” he said on TV3‘s New Day on Tuesday, July 11.
“The Ghana Card offers nothing.”
The NDC MP was reacting to claims by a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the show that the Ghana Card has come to provide vital data for government in policy decision-making.
Eric Amoako Twum, who represented the NPP, said the Ghana Card, operationalised in the first term of the Akufo-Addo-led government, provides key data in order to help government take policy decisions.
But lawyer Dafeamekpor said the claims downplay state institutions like the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) which have been providing data for governmental use and decision-making since inception.
“How can you suggest that it is the NIA?” he questioned. “Don’t trivialise these institutions.
“I am shocked to hear the NPP always say that it is the NIA card that is helping them to gather data. How? The NIA card doesn’t give you anything.”
Despite admitting he has one, the lawmaker said the Ghana Card does not even tell if the holder is employed or not.
“The data that will show you are an employee or not an employee is the data provided by the Ghana Statistical Service and there is a Government Statistician that provides that.”
For him, the data that is of value in terms of economic indicators are the ones provided “out from the Office of the Government Statistician and that is done by the Ghana Statistical Service”.