The unclaimed cards are lying across some 17 districts offices in both regions, Mr Enoch Ben Sackey, the Western Regional Director of the Authority, disclosed to the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Wednesday.

The Authority, therefore, intended to conduct an outdoor issuance in the affected district assemblies with support from the assemblies and traditional authorities to reduce the backlog.

“Now that we have permanent offices, it will be expensive to carry out outdoor activities but if the assemblies will collaborate and provide the needed logistics, then we will be able to undertake many of these outdoor issuance projects to drastically reduce the backlog,” he said.

Mr Sackey said cards transfer from the region to any part of the country was possible upon request by the individual owner who was ready to bear the cost involved.

He hinted that preparations were also underway to start a new registration process but touched on challenges like shortage of blank cards and the SIM card registration extension, making many applicants to relax in collecting their cards and thus aggravating the pile up.

He, therefore, entreated Ghanaians, particularly residents of Sekondi Takoradi, to visit the regional and district offices of the NIA to collect their cards.