No Armed Robbery Attack at NIA Registration Centre (Saturday January 16, 2010 pg 31)
THE Head of the Public Relations Unit of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Ms Bertha Dzeble, has denied reports that armed robbers attacked women who went to some registration centres in Accra for the national identification exercise.
Reacting to allegations of an armed robbery attack at some registration centres at Abeka on Thursday, Ms Dzeble said investigations by the security detail of the NIA could not confirm the allegations.
According to Ms Dzeble, NIA investigators found that two women were attacked near the SDA Church and Foursquare Gospel Church registration centres at dawn by two men on a motorbike who stole their handbags but no one could confirm the attack at the centres.
Meanwhile, the national identification registration centres at the Railway Yard in Accra was plagued with chaos yesterday.
The process was characterised by long winding queues of anxious applicants at the four registration centres the Daily Graphic visited at of 3 pm, while three of the four centres had only one official manning the registration table and another one taking photographs.
With no security personnel in sight, heckling, insults and general acts of indiscipline were the order of the day.
At the Railway Yard IA registration centre where the registration table was crowded by applicants, fight broke out when a young man who claimed he had been part of the queue before leaving to attend the call of nature was denied entry.
It took an official of the Ghana Railway Company (GRC) to restrain him and maintain calm. A few minutes later, another young man was heckled and pushed out of the queue for trying to jump it.
Mary Boatema, an applicant, alleged that an official was taking bribes before registering people.
''I have been in this queue since 8 in the morning and it is very slow. One of the young ladies was taking bribes and when we complained she refused to register us,'' she claimed.
When the official in question was contacted, she declined to comment and referred the reporter to another officer, Nii Ablor Sowah, who denied the allegations, saying his colleague had been wrongly accused because she ''filled the last form available before they went on lunch break and because the people were told it was the last form, they were alleging that we were taking money. No money exchanged hands here; that, I can assure you;'' he stated.
He stated that work at the centre was slow because one of the officers had been sent to another centre to replace someone who had not turned up.
Mr Sowah said the centre was not convenient, as the process was hampered by the unavailability of logistics such as tables and chairs, while another official, Mr Charles Allotey, called for security at the centre because "the people refuse to stay in the queues and fights erupt easily''.
He noted that some staff of the GRC were also putting a lot of pressure on the registration officials to prioritise their (railway staff) registration because their premises were being used for the exercise.
At the Railway Yard registration centre 1B, the queues were moving very slowly but there was calm.
However, the registration official, Mrs Priscilla Owusu, said the centre was no different from the others, especially in terms of discipline.
She stated that most of the time they had to leave the registration process to ask for police protection before sanity prevailed there.
She noted that the turnout of applicants outnumbered the personnel assigned to perform the task, making the job difficult.
She appealed to the police to help provide security at the centre to ensure that sanity prevailed for the officers to work with peace of mind.
''We need security because some of the boys here are rowdy and keep harassing us. This is affecting our output,'' she stated.
An applicant at the centre, Mrs Rebecca Yeboah-Adomako, called for an extension of the registration days.
Another applicant, Vida Amofa, said she had been at the centre on three different days but could not register because either it was too late for her to register or the centre was out of materials, adding that the time she spent at the centre affected her business, since she had to close her business in order to be at the centre.
Reacting to allegations of an armed robbery attack at some registration centres at Abeka on Thursday, Ms Dzeble said investigations by the security detail of the NIA could not confirm the allegations.
According to Ms Dzeble, NIA investigators found that two women were attacked near the SDA Church and Foursquare Gospel Church registration centres at dawn by two men on a motorbike who stole their handbags but no one could confirm the attack at the centres.
Meanwhile, the national identification registration centres at the Railway Yard in Accra was plagued with chaos yesterday.
The process was characterised by long winding queues of anxious applicants at the four registration centres the Daily Graphic visited at of 3 pm, while three of the four centres had only one official manning the registration table and another one taking photographs.
With no security personnel in sight, heckling, insults and general acts of indiscipline were the order of the day.
At the Railway Yard IA registration centre where the registration table was crowded by applicants, fight broke out when a young man who claimed he had been part of the queue before leaving to attend the call of nature was denied entry.
It took an official of the Ghana Railway Company (GRC) to restrain him and maintain calm. A few minutes later, another young man was heckled and pushed out of the queue for trying to jump it.
Mary Boatema, an applicant, alleged that an official was taking bribes before registering people.
''I have been in this queue since 8 in the morning and it is very slow. One of the young ladies was taking bribes and when we complained she refused to register us,'' she claimed.
When the official in question was contacted, she declined to comment and referred the reporter to another officer, Nii Ablor Sowah, who denied the allegations, saying his colleague had been wrongly accused because she ''filled the last form available before they went on lunch break and because the people were told it was the last form, they were alleging that we were taking money. No money exchanged hands here; that, I can assure you;'' he stated.
He stated that work at the centre was slow because one of the officers had been sent to another centre to replace someone who had not turned up.
Mr Sowah said the centre was not convenient, as the process was hampered by the unavailability of logistics such as tables and chairs, while another official, Mr Charles Allotey, called for security at the centre because "the people refuse to stay in the queues and fights erupt easily''.
He noted that some staff of the GRC were also putting a lot of pressure on the registration officials to prioritise their (railway staff) registration because their premises were being used for the exercise.
At the Railway Yard registration centre 1B, the queues were moving very slowly but there was calm.
However, the registration official, Mrs Priscilla Owusu, said the centre was no different from the others, especially in terms of discipline.
She stated that most of the time they had to leave the registration process to ask for police protection before sanity prevailed there.
She noted that the turnout of applicants outnumbered the personnel assigned to perform the task, making the job difficult.
She appealed to the police to help provide security at the centre to ensure that sanity prevailed for the officers to work with peace of mind.
''We need security because some of the boys here are rowdy and keep harassing us. This is affecting our output,'' she stated.
An applicant at the centre, Mrs Rebecca Yeboah-Adomako, called for an extension of the registration days.
Another applicant, Vida Amofa, said she had been at the centre on three different days but could not register because either it was too late for her to register or the centre was out of materials, adding that the time she spent at the centre affected her business, since she had to close her business in order to be at the centre.
Comments
Post a Comment