The National Identification Authority has initiated the process of registering healed lepers on the national identification register.
The project, sponsored by Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, began yesterday at the Weija Leprosarium in the Greater Accra Region and is scheduled to reach 20 to 50 persons.
Following that, the exercise would be expanded to the Ankaful Leprosarium in the Central Region and Kokofu in the Ashanti Region.
Other healed lepers in the Volta Region’s Ho, the Northern Region’s Nkanchina, and the Upper West Region’s Wa will be registered in due order.
The verification will catch the lepers’ faces, eyes, and ears, as some have lost their fingers to leprosy.
Relevance
Dr Bawumia defined the Ghana Card as a necessary document for all residents to get in order to conduct business and engage in other activities.
“We do not want anybody to be left out so we are talking about inclusion of everybody.
“We want to make sure that cured lepers as a group are also included, and this is taking place in Weija,” he said.
Dr Bawumia, who is also the Patron of the Lepers Aid Committee, went on to say that lepers were among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals in society, emphasising the need to include them.
Concerning the legislation controlling the use of the Ghana Card, the Vice-President stated that the law defined 17 uses for the card and that it was the basis for why every person must have it.
According to the available statistics, there have been 120 million card verifications thus far.
Social inclusion
Prof. Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah, the NIA’s Executive Secretary, described the effort as an exercise in social, economic, and political inclusiveness.
He stated that the NIA has already enrolled 17.4 million persons on the national identification registry, representing those aged 15 and up.
“We have just about 2.5 million citizens, aged 15 and above out of the 31 million who have not been registered.
“With the support of the staff of NIA, we can register the 2.5 million people in a period of two to three months if we have blank cards, that is our most burning desire at the moment,” Prof. Attafuah said.
He also stated that his organisation has finished plans with the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service, and the Registrar of the Births and Deaths Registry to register children between the ages of zero and six.
Prof. Attafuah also stated that the authority would register Ghanaians in the diaspora if funds were available.
Appreciation
Rev. Father Andrew Campbell, Chairman of the Lepers Aid Committee, thanked Dr Bawumia for his unwavering support for healing lepers around the country.
He did, however, call for a raise in the feeding allowance for recovered lepers, claiming that they are entitled to more than GH 30 per month to live dignified lives.
Source: adomonline.com
