MR.. YAYRA KOKU, an IT expert and former Head of Data Systems at the National Identification Autjority (NIA) has challenged Vice-President and the NPP Flag-bearer, Dr. Mahamoudu Bawumia to stop crediting himself with the success story of Ghana Card.
In a tweet this afternoon, Mr. Yayra Koku explained that Dr Bawumia paid a working visit to NIA in 2017, along with the current NCA Boss, Mr Anokye and some CEOs.
As Head of Systems at the NIA, he (Yayra Koku) was responsibility to take him and his entourage through the NIA systems. That is, “where we started from, where we are now, and where we plan to go”, Mr. Koku explained.
Mr. Koku explained that NIA had in place and how they were transitioning from the old centralised system, which only captured two fingerprints, to a new system that will capture all ten fingerprints of an applicant, Iris, phone numbers for SIM registration, and issue cards immediately.
He indicated that as part of his briefing, he had informed Dr. Bawumia and his team that NIA needed to transition to instant issuance printing because the previous system was expensive because it was centralised printing. “That is, we register Ghanaians, bring their data to the NIA office, process it, print it, and return to the field to distribute it to applicants. However, with the new system, the government at the time procured it in 2016, the cards are issued immediately on the field”.
“Again, I informed Dr. Bawumia and his team that the old system, which had approximately 16 million Ghanaians’ data, had been successfully migrated to the new system”. “…..this is to ensure data consistency and integrity. That is why if you register now and change your Date of Birth, and it does not match what you registered with in the previous system, it will be flagged for investigation”.
Dr. Bawumia and his team were also informed that the new system had completed the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) in December 2016 and was now ready for the final acceptance test, the Site Acceptance Test (SAT), prior to its launch.
Dr. Bawumia and his team were also informed that the new system is a public-private partnership (PPP) between Margins Group and the NIA, with the first contract to pilot instant card issuance completed in 2013 as part of the FIMS project.
Mr. Yayra Koku tweeted this afternoon that, “it is therefore surprising that Vice-President and NPP flag-bearer, Dr. Mahamoudu Bawumia, in his lecture yesterday, took credit for the new system while condemning the previous government who bought the systems for doing nothing. That is obvious DISHONESTY”.
To this effect, Mr. Koku promised to share email exchanges between NIA and the Margins group as they migrated old system data to new ones, in his next post.
He was quick to add that the only thing the NPP government added was the Digital address field on the forms. But even that was done wrongly. Go to NIA and the system will pick so far as it is consistent with the format of the addressing system, Mr. Koku bemoaned.
Source: Nationaltymes.com
